


escape speed

by miuyi (rainiest)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5612401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainiest/pseuds/miuyi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sehun dreams of darkness, of fire, of bodies that break and stars that live forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	escape speed

**Author's Note:**

> originally written back in february for ohunlimited 2015  
> written to and largely inspired by [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvjNyJ8TBNk) song
> 
>  **warnings:** apocalyptic themes, language, implied depression, alcoholism, off screen drug use, brief implied physical abuse, wounds and medical procedures, domestic neglect, terminal illness, death of parental figures  
> 

All that's visible beyond the glass is pure, swirling black by the time the door trembles in its frame. Sehun tears his eyes from the window to settle on the door. The shudder was soft enough that it might've just been the wind, but he can't help the hope that flares golden in his chest.

The door rattles again, louder this time, unmistakeable. Sehun lurches to his feet from the threadbare couch, muscles stiff with tension and eyes dry and sore. The concrete is frigid and sandy against his bare feet as he stumbles to the door. Outside, the wind is howling hungrily, whipping into the crevices in the brick, but Sehun can just hear a faint shout over the top.

"Let me in, Sehun! There's a storm out here!"

His fingers are stiff and frozen as they fumble with the chain. The door flies inward the moment he gets it undone, and a body is pressed up against him as freezing wind whips through the open door. It slams shut, leaving only a fresh layer of sand on the floor and a chill in the air. The wind moans forlornly, pounds at the door to be let in.

There's a moment of suspended silence, then, "What the hell, Jongin." Sehun doesn't bother to keep the bite out of his voice because _fuck_ , he's angry. "Do you know what time it is? Nightfall was four hours ago. Four."

Jongin reaches up to pull down the hood of his black ski coat and unwraps the scarf from around his mouth and nose so he can speak. "I know. I'm sorry, I took a different route and lost track of time."

"Lost track of-- oh, my god," Sehun mutters, disbelieving. "I warned you there'd be a storm. I told you to be back well before sunset. People _die_ out there, Jongin."

"I know." Jongin looks down as he wrests his boots from his feet. The sand that streams out when he finally pulls them off is enough to form two passable sandcastles on the floor. There are dots of blood from sand lash across the bridge of his nose where his scarf had slipped.

"You're bleeding," Sehun says, and Jongin touches his fingertips to his face. They come away stained red. Sehun bites his lip and swallows hard. His heart is thundering in his chest and his eyes sting and he's realising he might've been wrong. He's not angry, he's _terrified_. "You can't take risks like that, Jongin. It's not worth it."

Jongin stands, bringing him eye to eye with Sehun. He rests both hands heavily on Sehun’s shoulders and stares at him unflinchingly. "Sehun, it's okay," he says, each syllable passing slow and heavy through his lips. "I'm okay." The heat of Jongin's palms bleeds through his shirt and chases away some of the chill he'd accumulated over the past four hours, waiting rigid on the couch.

"Okay," Sehun says quietly. He takes a deep breath. "Okay." He clears his throat, then in a stronger voice says, "But sweep your gross foot sand out of the entryway or so help me, I'll pour it in your bed."

Jongin glances toward where the wind is still furiously beating against the door. He turns back to Sehun, an eyebrow raised.

"Once this storm is over," he amends reluctantly, and Jongin grins at him before sidestepping him and walking into the house.

"I found something for you," Jongin calls over his shoulder as he makes his way to the dining table. He opens his khaki rucksack and fishes around deep inside, before pulling out a thick tome and proudly presenting it to Sehun.

"You found a _Giancoli_? Oh man, I thought these went out of print years ago." Sehun leafs over to the contents page, scanning eagerly. "Where'd you find it?"

"In a university. They had tonnes of 'em, all stacked in a closet."

Sehun looks up curiously from the textbook. "You've never mentioned anything about a university before."

Jongin shifts in his seat, avoids Sehun's eye. "I've never been before. Like I said, I took a different route."

"Oh." _Oh_. Sehun realises now why Jongin had gotten caught out in the storm. " _Jongin_." Sehun says imploringly.

Jongin shrugs, still won't look at him. "It's fine. I wanted to."

He weighs the book in his hands. It's heavy, his arms straining just to hold it a few inches off the table. There's blood beading on the cuts on Jongin's face and he looks heartbreakingly dejected. "You really shouldn't have but... I, uh- thanks," Sehun mumbles finally. Jongin perks up a little, like a freshly watered flower.

"I found these, too." He upends his rucksack and a dozen plastic jars and bottles, each small enough to hold in his fist, roll out onto the table. "There must have been hundreds, but I didn't know what they were so I just grabbed one from every shelf."

Sehun seizes them and eagerly scans the labels. "This one's cyclohexane! I've been wanting a non-polar solvent for months... Is this nickel? Holy shit, do you know how many reactions I can catalyse with this?"

Jongin looks bemused. "No fucking idea. Have you got any food?"

Sehun grabs his half-finished can of stew, the spoon he used still sticking out, from the counter and pushes it across the table at Jongin. He descends onto it like a malnourished stray dog. Gathering the assortment of jars in his arms, Sehun heads for the garage. "I'm gonna try catalogue these before I go tomorrow," he says over his shoulder, then to himself: "Maybe I'll even have time to run one quick electrolytic cell trial using the graphite as inert electrodes--"

"You're leaving?" Sehun turns to find Jongin staring at him with the spoon halfway to his mouth.

"I've gotta get back. Dad's probably wondering where I am." They both know that's not true, but Jongin dutifully doesn’t say anything, and Sehun is grateful.

"Okay," Jongin says instead. The expression on his face still reminds Sehun of a stray dog, wide-eyed and plaintive.

"I'll be back tomorrow. You need a good sleep, anyway."

Jongin nods again and yawns abruptly. "Yeah, okay. Have fun with your electromagnetic... whatever."

Sehun snorts. "Thanks, I will."

And he does, perhaps a little too much fun because by the time he emerges the storm has abated and Jongin is face down on the couch, wholeheartedly unconscious. Sehun huffs in amusement as he slings his bag over his shoulder. He latches the door quietly behind him and sets out into the cold, dark dawn.

 

 

Sehun is four months old the day the sky goes dark. He remembers nothing of it, of course, but years on, when his mother tells him of how she and his father had run to the forest for shelter as the earth shook beneath them, Sehun swears he can taste the crushed pine and his mother's fear on the back of his tongue.

It's truly ironic, the way it happens. Irony of the most poetic, tragic kind, when a meteor embeds itself in the earth in the middle of Russia. The coincidence is almost too damning-- two dominant races wiped out in one fell swoop, millions of years apart. Whether an insult from the heavens, stellar intervention, government conspiracy-- it soon becomes apparent that it no longer matters. The end of the world is no place for speculation, no place for anything that isn't survival.

 

 

The house Sehun grew up in is about two hours away on foot. The dawn is cold and crisp and darker than usual, even for times like these. Sehun has to switch on the emergency torch on his belt only ten minutes into his journey after he trips over a crack in the road for the third time. The light puts him on edge. It makes him an easy target for the rogues and gangs that roam these parts but, as Sehun would prefer not to break an ankle, it cannot be helped.

When he first sees the lights of the safe zone in the distance, he exhales. He switches off his torch once he reaches the first lit lantern hanging off a street lamp. They're crude, a single flame in an oil lamp, but they line all the main streets of the safe zone and shed enough light that he can see where he's going.

The safe zone is a small section of the old city centre that didn't collapse in the aftershocks. There's a tentative agreement in place within the major powers in the city that protects the inhabitants of the area, mostly families with children and the elderly. The maze of skyscrapers shields the one thousand or so residents from the worst of the storms and there's a strict food and water rationing system that's sustained the population until now. Sehun doesn't know how much food was in the stockpile originally, but it's been almost twenty years since then. There can't possibly be much left.

The sky is a familiar brown, pale light cascading down in flimsy sheets. It's just enough to read his watch by. His mother once told him that the brightest day now felt the same as the darkest night in the old world. Sehun can’t imagine a world filled with so much _light_.

His childhood house is a two storey building toward the south end of the populated zone. Sehun thinks it might've been red brick once, but now it's the same colour as everything else in this world, the oppressive brown of dust and decay.

The knob turns freely when Sehun tries it, but he has to lean with all his weight to get the door open enough to slip through. The sand inside is at least a few inches deep on the floor. It forms a tiny sand bar against the door where he'd forced it back. He stares down as his feet sink in for a moment, then takes off his shoes and places them on the rack beside the door. He sets his backpack down next to it and hangs up his jacket on the opposing wall.

"Dad, it's me!" he yells as he walks into the kitchen, grimacing at the feeling of sand under his socks. "Dad?" There are a few empty cans on the dining table, scattered across the kitchen counter. His father is nowhere in sight.

The curtains in the lounge room are shut and Sehun stubs his toe hard on the leg of the coffee table as he crosses the room. He swears and hops over to the window, fumbles blindly for the curtains and yanks them open. The movement stirs up dust and sand in a greying cloud around him and he masks his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his sweatshirt until it settles. There’s just enough light streaming in now for him to see his surroundings. There are more cans in here and an ashtray on the coffee table.

He makes his way down the darkened hall, with fingertips sliding against the walls to guide himself. It feels different now to when he was younger, like the shadows might leap out at him if he looks away for too long.

Sehun finds him in the bedroom. The curtains are drawn in here too, but Sehun's eyes have adjusted enough that he can make out the lumpy outline in the bed.

He walks around to the edge. "Dad," he says quietly. There's a glass of clear liquid on the bedside table that Sehun is pretending is water, even though the smell is burning in the back of his nose. "Dad, wake up."

His father grunts and rolls over, away from him. Sehun's mouth thins. "I'll be in the kitchen." He takes the glass and upends it in the bathroom sink as he passes.

Once he's retrieved his bag from the entry, Sehun sets to work. He replaces the batteries in all the torches, the electric heater in the lounge and the hanging lamps in the kitchen, stowing the spent ones carefully back into his bag. He collects the empty cans too. With a furrowed brow, he takes a count. He always leaves two dozen, as to not break the districts hoarding laws. He can find fifteen empty cans, and there's definitely none left in the pantry. Despite his confusion, he restocks the kitchen with more. If anything, he reasons, his trip back will be lighter for it.

Next he pulls a bottle from his rucksack, small and made of thick brown plastic. He finds the camping stove by the kitchen sink, covered in a fine layer of dust. He brushes it off and pulls out the oil burner, carefully refilling it with the liquid from the brown bottle. It’s still almost full and heavy in his hands when he’s finished. After a moment of indecision, he slides it too onto the bottom shelf of the pantry. 

There's water boiling on the stove when Sehun hears his father stumble in. The chair squeaks against the floor as he sits down heavily, saying nothing. Sehun opens the cupboard and, after letting his fingers hesitate for a split second, pulls out two mugs.

"Good morning, dad," he says to the air in front of him. He extinguishes the flame and pours the steaming water into one mug. His father doesn't respond. 

There are two teabags in his pocket. A few days ago Jongin had found a new packet in the break room of an abandoned factory. "Now you can take two, next time you visit," he'd said, with so much hope colouring his voice. As if whatever this broken thing is that's left between him and his father could be mended over a cup of tea. 

It's for Jongin's sake, his naivety and his blind hope, that Sehun tries again. He clears his throat. "Did you sleep okay?" Sehun waits. No response. He takes one teabag from his pocket and drops it in the steaming water. It ripples, tints a soft brown.

Finally, he turns. His father has his head bowed, face pressed between his palms. Sehun slides the mug toward him but doesn't sit.

"I've replaced all the batteries and restocked the pantry. There's a bottle of methanol in there too. Are you out of matches?" His father grumbles something unintelligible. Sehun sighs. He fishes his lighter from his pocket and sets it on the table. "There's water purifying tablets in the top drawer. They’re a different brand to before. Two litres per tablet."

He turns away and stows everything back into his rucksack, torn between hurrying and the strange urge to linger. He slings it over his shoulder and turns back to his father, who has yet to move. "I'll be back in a week."

Sehun is halfway out the door when he hears a gruff murmur of "Sehun." He pauses, then, turns to look at his father. The man's eyes are bloodshot and his shoulders droop like he's trying to cave in on himself. But Sehun can still see himself somewhere there, in the sharp slice of jawline and the heavy brow. "Why do you still do this?" Stained fingers curl around the mug and it must burn, but his father doesn't seem to notice.

Sehun says nothing, but cannot stop the unbidden _I don't know_ surfacing from the darkest corner of his mind. Sehun's eyes fall to his feet as the sink into the sand. "You need to sweep the entryway," he murmurs, for lack of anything else to say.

His father stares at him hard, like he's trying to recognise him. "Don't bother coming back."

Sehun grips the doorframe hard but his face stays impassive. "Okay," he says quietly. He steps into his shoes. "Bye, dad." He makes his way out into the dark and pulls the door shut behind him. With closed eyes, he takes a deep breath, before reshouldering his pack and walking away. 

He knows he'll come back. He always does.

 

 

Instead of heading straight back to the house, Sehun takes a detour by the river. He toes his way atop the banks, no more than mounds of silt sloping into the river. It's a damn near miracle that it's still flowing, the water choked to the point of grey opaqueness.

It's freezing and the ever-present dusty breeze stings his skin and makes it hard to see. He's just beyond the safe zone limits and his nerves are about ready to snap. He's not here for relaxation though, he's looking for something. The only problem being that he's not sure exactly where to find it, which brings him to the streets immediately adjacent the river, meandering aimlessly.

He should be expecting it, but when someone swings down from a low rooftop a mere foot from his face he can't help but let out a strangled screech and swing wildly with his torch. His wrist is caught before he can make contact.

"Come on, don't be like that, Sehun." He gets a light slap to his undefended belly, followed by a crushing hug that he can't crawl out of no matter how hard he tries.

"Zitao, stop," he wheezes, "get off me. Get _off!_ " Sehun struggles free, fully aware that it's only because Zitao allowed it. From the dark-haired man's smug expression Sehun can surmise that he knows it too.

"Just give me the stuff," he grumbles, keeping a wary distance from Zitao and his Cheshire grin.

Zitao holds up his hands. "Wow okay, someone's touchy today." He pulls a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his parka with an obnoxious flourish.

"Let's see, Sehun... three packs of soap, needle and thread-- two litres of hydrochloric acid?! Why the hell would you need-- you know what, I don't care." Zitao gives him a despairing look and pockets the list. "Wait here." 

Once Zitao has slunk away into the maze of alleys like a smug, overfed tom, Sehun is left alone with the disquiet of his thoughts. He's not concerned about being jumped now, if Zitao's in this area today it's unlikely any other unsavoury figures would risk crossing him. From his pack he fishes a carton of matches. They're in such a constant high demand that he knows Zitao will accept the trade.

He thinks about the food he leaves at his father’s house, always exactly two dozen cans, and frowns. He doesn't notice Zitao's return until he's practically on top of him, laden with goods.

"Oh, is that for me?" He asks, eyeing the box in Sehun's arms. He places his load on the ground and snatches the carton, shaking it by his ear. He whistles and raises an eyebrow at Sehun. "Full. Are you ever gonna tell me how you manage to find this shit?" 

Sehun just shrugs. “I’ve got friends.” He picks up the jug of hydrochloric acid to inspect it. It's good stuff, concentrated enough to be worth his while. He nods briefly at Zitao, who preens. 

Sehun barely suppresses an eye roll. "Oh please, Zitao. Cut the crap. We both know you're useless at scavenging." 

Zitao makes an indignant noise. "I help the others, sometimes."

"Please. You can barely get past the safe zone limits without someone holding your hand," Sehun murmurs as he stows the acid.

Zitao's face falls and for a split second he looks so much like Jongin that Sehun does a double take. Sehun feels a pang of guilt lance through his side, which is odd because he honestly barely even likes Zitao. 

He rummages through a side pocket of his bag and pulls out a handful of metal. Avoiding eye contact, he shoves it at Zitao. "You might as well have these. I have no use for them."

Zitao turns the mess over in his hands and curiously pulls out one of the pieces, a silver stud with a small cross dangling from it. Zitao's face cracks into a toothy grin. "Thanks, Sehun."

"Yeah, whatever," Sehun grumbles. "Only because you're the only person I know insane enough to stick bits of metal through himself, despite the infection risks." 

Zitao's still smiling, though, as he pockets the earrings. "What can I get you for next time?"

"More purifying tablets, iron supplements if you can find them. Any supps, really." 

Zitao hums and nods. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Uh." Sehun scratches at the back of his head. "A UV lamp?"

Zitao throws his head back and cackles. "I knew there'd be a weird one in there somewhere. I'll see what I can do. See you next time, then." Zitao starts to walk away.

"Zitao, wait. There's, uh, one more thing. Well, not a thing exactly." Zitao halts and cocks his head. "I was wondering about alcohol. Do you trade it?"

"Me? No. No, I don't. The people who want it aren't worth trading with." Zitao scrutinises him. "Why do you ask? You don't want some, do you?"

"What? No, I was just curious. So there are people that trade it?" Sehun tries to tame his voice into casual indifference.

Zitao huffs. "Well yeah, of course. If there's a profit to be made, people will trade it. Not around here, though." He indicates toward the river with a jerk of his chin. "You'd be more likely to find it on the other side of the river. Around the sharehouses." Zitao's jaw clenches and something dark swims in his eyes. Sehun says nothing.

"Sehun, you're a smart guy," Zitao says finally. "Stay away from there, yeah?"

"Yeah," Sehun says. "Yeah, of course."

"See you next week, then." Zitao nods at him, still subdued, and catapults himself lithely onto a rooftop with both hands. There's a faint thumping of boots on steel, and then nothing at all.

 

 

When he was younger, Sehun was terrified of storms. On nights when the wind screamed and the windows rattled in their frames, Sehun's mother would sing him an old world lullaby. By tentative candlelight with Sehun wailing into her chest, her high, clear voice would carve a foothold into the relentless beating of sand against the house.

_Only the wind knows a butterfly's flight_  
_None but the plants think to grow to the light_  
_A trickling stream finds the way to the shore_  
_And only a whale hears a whale's call_

_Dearest one, do not worry nor fret_  
_There is plenty of time for knowing yet_  
_Dream and dance through the darkest night_  
_For only the wind knows a butterfly's flight_

As he got older, and as he learned that there are things in this world far worse than sandstorms, his fear faded into nothing but an obscure childhood relic. But sometimes, when Jongin is snoring lightly on the opposite bunk and the wind seems to scream his name, he still finds himself with his eyes squeezed shut and the blanket clutched in his fists, chanting the words under his breath like a prayer.

 

 

Jongin is awake when Sehun shuffles in the front door. He lets his pack drop hard by his feet as he rounds the corner into the lounge.

Jongin is on the rug, braced on his elbows and toes, back flat and arms shaking with exertion. His hair is dark and slick with sweat and the back of his grey tank is damp. Sehun steps over him and rolls in a heap onto the couch, staring up at the cracked ceiling.

"How's your dad?" Jongin's voice is strained.

"Fine," Sehun says, eyes and expression unmoving. "Great."

He hears the scuff of movement against carpet and then Jongin's face appears a few inches over his. For a few suspended seconds, Jongin simply stares down at him.

"It's only because he loved her so much. You know that, right?" The single lamp on the ceiling shines through the strands of Jongin's hair and casts his face into shadow. "It's not your fault."

Sehun hadn't asked for reassurance. It would be wrong, in a world where people walk into sandstorms and never come back out, where bodies are hollowed from the inside out, to stop and say _It’s not really my fault, is it? That he became like this?_

Sehun hadn't asked for reassurance, but Jongin had given it to him anyway. The cold weight of despair in his stomach that had been there since morning lifts, just a little. And it must show on his face because Jongin lights up, his mouth tentative but his eyes crescents of fierce happiness. He stands, trying to hide the lingering smile in the curve of his bare shoulder. He's never been great at expressing himself, but Sehun knows he's still smiling by the way his eyelashes shadow his cheek.

Later, they share the single teabag left in Sehun's pocket, in Jongin's mug first and then Sehun's. He doesn't mind. He's always preferred his tea weak anyway.

 

 

Sehun's lab, or the nerd cave as Jongin dubbed it many years ago, is really the garage of the house they appropriated some years ago. The space is large enough to comfortably house two vehicles and it was occupied when they first stumbled upon it, one car a cherry red convertible, the other sleek and silver. They were expensive, if the Italian names curled below the tail lights were anything to go by. Sehun and Jongin had long since siphoned their gas and pushed them out onto the street. The sand stripped them over the years and now only two metal frames parked at the curb are left, filling with sand like giant hourglasses.

These days Sehun’s work table sits in the centre of the room, littered with whatever he’s working on at a given time. The walls are bare concrete and it's always freezing, but Sehun doesn't mind. 

His collection of materials is shelved against the far wall. Some of them are extremely volatile, will react readily with air or water if given the chance, and most are flammable to some degree. He stores everything carefully and checks them regularly, but it still makes him nervous. The bedroom is on the other side of the wall and one mistake, one stray molecule of water vapour in a jar of potassium, could burn the entire wall to ashes in moments. To this day, Jongin still doesn't know why Sehun had been so insistent that he take the bed closest to the wall.

The rest of the room is scarce; a lamp hanging from the ceiling and another on the desk, a poster of the periodic table on one of the walls that Sehun doesn't use because the values are so horrifically inaccurate, a lab coat hanging beside the door, safety goggles in the pocket. And, oddly, a lonely shoebox tucked in the far corner of the room.

Sehun kneels beside it. The bare concrete is cold and hard against his knees as he pulls off the lid and sets it aside. A single envelope sits inside, unsealed. He pulls it out with careful fingers and weighs it in his palm. It's so light it could be empty.

He opens the flap and tips it over his outstretched palm slowly, carefully. Half a dozen tiny seeds roll out onto his hand, catching in the dips and crevices of his skin. They're teardrop-shaped, like black sesame seeds. With the slow burn of anxiety igniting deep in his gut, he notes that there are barely twenty seeds left in the envelope.

Nevertheless, he stores the envelope back in the box and closes his hand into a loose fist, carrying the seeds over to his work desk. There's a ceramic pot waiting there, shadowed in the lamplight. Sehun had found it in front of a house across the street, split down the centre. He'd mended it with superglue and filled it with dirt from the front garden.

Using the tip of his finger, he pokes holes in the soil. It feels thin and dry against his skin and even though all he knows about gardening is what he's gleaned from the few brochures and pamphlets Jongin has found, he knows that's not a good thing. 

But he also learned that the likelihood of seeds successfully germinating decreases dramatically after their first ten years of storage. He's backed into a corner. Sehun's a realist; he knows the seeds will never germinate in sand. But he'd rather lose them trying than let them sit in that box forever, a tiny pocket of eternal hope, an unshakeable maybe.

He sprinkles the seeds in the holes. They're tiny, like dust particles falling from his fingertips. He waters them generously and pretends not to notice the sand drinking in the water and hardening like concrete over the seeds.

Jongin is at the table, lower lip clamped between his teeth as he mends the strap of his backpack, when Sehun walks out. He looks up and sees Sehun clutching the pot to his chest, and there must be distress written across his face or defeat in his eyes that he hadn't been able to conceal because in a heartbeat Jongin drops the needle and thread on the table and shoots halfway to his feet, eyes dinner-plate wide.

Sehun sets the pot on the windowsill in the lounge. It's not like there's any light coming through, but he didn't feel right leaving it boxed in the garage and expecting it to grow. He steps back and regards his work. The crack down the middle of the pot is visible and the dirt is a sad grey-brown, still damp. The sky behind the window is a never ending field of roiling black. A self-deprecating, borderline hysterical laugh bubbles up his throat like acid.

He feels rather than sees Jongin's presence at his elbow. "It'll grow," he says, with fierce conviction. Sehun wants to believe him but he's always hoped with his head, not his heart.

But Jongin believes in him, even if Sehun can't believe in himself, and that might just be enough.

 

 

Darkness falls and brings with it a sandstorm even worse than the previous night's. Sehun is on edge and paces the house checking and rechecking the boards over the windows until Jongin manages to corral him into poker with joking threats and poorly veiled concern. The distraction works, if only because Jongin can laugh louder than the wind can howl.

Inevitably, Jongin knocks out after a dozen rounds, face down on the table. Sehun eases the cards from his slack grip and snorts as he glances at them. An off suit 2-7, statistically the worst starting hand possible. And Jongin probably would've gone on to bluff Sehun out of the water, bad hand or not. Sehun is abysmal at poker. He can never set aside the figures and probabilities, can't quite bring himself to take risks that he knows aren't likely to pay off.

"Jongin." He attempts to rouse Jongin with a shake to the shoulder, muffling a laugh when his brow furrows and he groans a little, but otherwise shows no inclination to join the world of the living. "You can't sleep here, you'll mess up your back." Jongin's eyelids flutter before squeezing shut again. Sehun prods at him again and he lets out a mournful cry, now definitely awake and apparently not thrilled about it.

Jongin hauls himself to his feet and glares at Sehun from under his dark bangs. Sehun quickly steps out of his way, managing to discreetly pull the chair from under Jongin before he can get his legs hopelessly tangled. This, barely conscious and swaying, is the only time Jongin is ever anything short of pleasant. Sehun wouldn't say he enjoys it, but it's definitely somewhat of a novelty.

He follows Jongin as he slumps down the hall toward the bedroom, only having to discreetly redirect him once to avoid a collision with the wall.

"Why do you have to walk so goddamn loud?" Jongin mutters mutinously.

"Sorry," Sehun mumbles, consciously trying to lighten his steps and biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

By the time they reach the bedroom Jongin is swaying dangerously. He flops onto his bed and is unconscious and breathing heavily in the time it takes Sehun to duck back into the hall to extinguish the lamp. Sehun tucks the blanket up around Jongin's shoulders before crossing to his own bed.

He swaddles himself in blankets and pulls his knees to his chest. He feels oddly alone now with nothing but his own thoughts to distract him from the storm outside. Well, not quite. Shutting his eyes, he focuses on the rhythmic _whoosh_ of Jongin's breathing, and tunes out the chaotic crescendos of the screaming wind

 

 

The storm has not abated by the morning, nor the next or the one after that. It's not uncommon for overnight storms to linger into midmorning, before the sand currents calm under the sun's furious glare, high, high above, but a storm lasting three days straight is unheard of.

Funnily enough, Jongin is the one who is the most affected. Once Sehun learns to tune out the wind and the relentless lashing of sand against the house, he can retreat into the garage and his experiments with little problem. His mind has always been his refuge, after all.

But Jongin is a physical being. The city around them is to him what science is to Sehun; an escape, a distraction. Boxed inside and unable to explore, Jongin slowly starts to go stir crazy. He paces laps around the house until Sehun swears he can see trails worn into the carpet. Then he fixes the broken knob of the bedroom door, reboards the loose planks on the windows and reorganises their entire food collection. 

After exercising until his muscles tremble and shine under the dull lamplight and flopping back, limp and useless, on the rug next to the couch, he finally asks, "Sehun, what do stars look like?"

And that's when Sehun really starts to worry, because if Jongin is asking him about science there's something seriously wrong. "Are you feeling okay?" he asks, eyeing Jongin skeptically.

"What? Yeah, I just want to know about stars." He certainly seems lucid enough, but Sehun is not convinced.

"Why? Do you have a fever?" He reaches out to feel his forehead. Jongin swats his hand away.

"I'm fine," he insists, "they just seem cool. Tell me about them."

Sehun raises an eyebrow but complies. "Okay, uh. Stars are created when a gaseous cloud in space gains enough mass to have a significant gravitational field--"

"Not like that," Jongin interrupts, looking vaguely troubled. "Not the science stuff. What do they look like?"

Sehun frowns. "Well the colours can vary from red through to blue, depending on surface temperature and spectral class. But to the naked eye of an observer on earth, they look white."

"How many are there?" Jongin asks, eyes wide.

"Billions. As many as there are grains of sand on earth."

"Wow," Jongin breathes, "and we can see them all?"

"Not with the naked eye, we can't. The universe is constantly expanding, causing the light from the stars to be shifted into the infrared region and..." Jongin's brow furrows and Sehun tries again. "No, to the human eyes the night sky appears black aside from stars and other celestial objects."

"Can people go up there?" Jongin asks, eyes wide.

"Of course they can. Most countries had an entire program dedicated to space exploration."

"Wow," Jongin says again, sounding a little breathless. His eyes are distant and shining with a strange new colour, like they're reflecting phantom starlight.

 

 

On the fourth day, Sehun wakes to silence outside and an empty bed across from him. He pads out to the kitchen and sees a note in the middle of the dining table.

 _Gone exploring out west._ Jongin's messy scrawl informs him. _I'll be back before dark, don't miss me too much._

Sehun snorts. "Yeah, okay. Asshole." He steps toward the kitchen and freezes as his entire sock is suddenly soaked through. He looks down to find that the floor is covered with a centimetre of water. 

"What the hell?" Sehun mutters as he follows the puddle toward the kitchen, both socks now soaked through. He finds the source eventually, the barrel which holds their entire clean water supply. There's a tiny hole in the base where the plastic has worn through, and it's completely empty.

"Shit," Sehun says, scraping a hand through his hair. " _Shit._ " 

If Jongin's gone exploring he won't be bringing back water. Even if he manages to find some in uncharted territory, it's too heavy and he doesn't know that they're in dire need. Sehun's already thirsty and in a world where people regularly succumb to dehydration, he's not going to take any chances. He has to be the one to collect water, and he has to go today.

He heads back to his room and changes his socks, hanging the sopping ones on his bed frame to dry. Skipping around the puddle, he steps into his boots by the door and puts on his coat. He grabs a torch and makes sure he has spare batteries before stepping outside. It's cold, the air thick as he breathes it in.

Sehun knows where to get more water. Jongin had stumbled onto a huge store of bottled water some years ago in an uninhabited part of the city. It'd been too much to carry at once so he'd left most of it, only going back when they needed it. Jongin had marked it on a map for him, explained which streets to use and which ones were unsafe, but Sehun's never actually been himself.

It's bright enough that he doesn't need to use his torch to avoid stumbling in dips in the road and walking into cars. Even though they were barely teenagers at the time, Sehun and Jongin chose their house very strategically. It's far, far away from the sharehouses and far enough from the safe zone that they're not subject to the hoarding laws. In addition, it sits right at the edge of the section of the city completely obliterated in the aftershocks. They don't get many rogues or gangs passing through because there's so little worth taking.

But it also means that the roads were never cleared like they were in the safe zone, which leaves Sehun weaving around vehicles as he heads east, toward the river but angling away from the inhabited districts.

It's still and relatively light out, and after an hour Sehun begins to relax. It's a three hour walk to where the water is, through nothing but abandoned, collapsed suburbia. It's certainly not picturesque, but it's about as unthreatening as a stroll through a dead city is likely to get.

But, half an hour later, it's not from inside the houses around him that the danger comes. It begins as a light tapping of rain on soft sand, barely noticeable. A drop lands on Sehun's cheek and rolls down to his jaw, suspended for a few seconds before it falls to his collar. 

A few moments later, his cheek starts to sting. It takes a little longer than it should for that to register, and by the time it does the rain is draping down in thin sheets around him. Sehun stops in his tracks. Far too late, the realisation dawns on him and suddenly his entire face is _burning_.

He throws his clothed arm over his face as he runs for the nearest house, half blind as the rain makes its way into his eyes. The porch is shallow but enough to shelter him for now. He presses his stinging eyes against his sleeve. "Fuck," he grits out between clenched teeth. 

After a few moments he regains enough sight to take in his surrounds. There's a single door to his right, beside it a window that's boarded from the outside. The wind is starting to pick up now, blowing the rain under the porch and into him.

"No, no, come on, please," he pants, rattling the door handle frantically. It's locked. "Fuck, come _on_!" he yells, giving the doorknob a final, hard tug, but the handle is unsympathetic to his plight. He scrabbles at the planks over the window, but his stinging fingertips are useless against the timber and he soon gives up.

He leans back beside the door, breathing hard. The rain is coming down so hard he can't even see the house across the street. He'd probably last ten seconds out in the rain before going completely blind, then another minute until he couldn't walk anymore. He prays that Jongin is tucked away safely somewhere, wherever he is.

The wind surges again, throwing a spray of rain against him. He cries out, shielding his face with his clothed arm. His coat is starting to wear through in places, but he has no other choice. He'll have to wait it out and hope the skies clear before the acid erodes him where he stands.

Sehun sees movement out of the corner of his eye and snaps his head around. He blinks a few times. His stinging eyes must be playing tricks on him, because it looks like the door beside him is swinging inward.

He stumbles around the corner, clutching the doorframe. He steps one foot into the house and freezes in place. His blood turns to ice. Just out of arm's reach, the twin barrel of a rifle stares at him, a dark and deadly serious gaze behind it. 

"Don't move," a low voice growls at him, "or I'll put a bullet through your skull." Sehun wills himself not to move an inch. "Raise your hands, nice and slow." Sehun does so, his palms trembling.

"This is how it's going to work." The man with the gun tells him calmly. "I'm going to walk backward down the hall slowly. You're going to follow me at the same pace. Go too fast or too slow and I'll shoot you. Got it?"

"Yes," Sehun croaks out. The man begins to edge backward and Sehun shuffles forward, eyes flicking warily between the man's feet and the gun. 

After a few meters of slow progress, the man stops. "There's a door to your left," he says. "Go through it very slowly and walk to the centre of the room. Keep your hands in the air."

Sehun gulps and complies. The room to his left is unnervingly mundane. There are tattered floral couches at the edges of the room and a coffee table with a few cups and an open book resting upside down on it. There's a door to his right that leads to what looks like a kitchen, and another at the end of the room that leads up a staircase.

"Drop to your knees and put your hands on your head." Sehun drops to his knees with a loud _thunk_ and rests his hands on his head. His hair is still damp and his palms start to burn.

Movement to his left catches his eye and Sehun nearly jumps out of his skin. Curled on an armchair is a man so thin Sehun had completely overlooked him. His face is gaunt with cheekbones that look sharp enough to slice through his skin, which is sickly yellow and stretched tight. His eyes are bloodshot and Sehun shivers as they flit over him.

"How did you find us?" the man with the gun asks from behind. 

"It was an accident, I swear," Sehun says, voice trembling. "It started raining and this house was the closest one."

"Convenient," The man says, unimpressed.

"Maybe he'd be more inclined to talk if you put a hole through one of his hands, Kyungsoo," the man on the chair mutters. Sehun flinches involuntarily.

The man behind him, Kyungsoo, hums. "Not a bad idea. How about we give him one more chance." He rounds to the front of Sehun, gun still levelled at him. "Which crew do you run with and how did you find us?"

"It's just me, I swear." Sehun can feel tears pooling in his eyes but he's far beyond being embarrassed. "I didn't know you were here, really. I ran out of water and I was looking for more."

Kyungsoo shakes his head like he's genuinely disappointed. "Wrong answer. Put your hand flat on the carpet in front of you."

"I promise, I didn't--"

"Do it or the bullet goes through your head." Kyungsoo doesn't raise his voice but something in his face has hardened. Sehun can’t die here. He can’t die and leave Jongin alone, waiting and waiting for him to come back. Swallowing a sob, Sehun puts his trembling left hand in front of him and squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for pain.

But there's no gunshot, instead the sounds of feet coming down the staircase. Sehun cracks an eye open warily to see two new men enter the room, looking terribly confused. One is short and has impressively muscled arms, the other thin but with a handsome face.

The strong one raises an eyebrow while the other looks at Kyungsoo, aghast. "What's going on? Who is that?"

"I don't know. He won't tell me who he works for."

"I don't work for anyone, I swear!" Sehun pleads.

"Be quiet," hisses the man on the couch beside him.

Kyungsoo continues like Sehun hadn't spoken. "Jongdae suggested we encourage him to talk."

"That's not necessary. Put the gun down," the handsome man reasons.

"It's extremely necessary, Lu Han. Or would you rather let him go and have an entire gang on this place by sundown."

Lu Han looks to Sehun with a searching gaze. "He doesn't seem the type. Look at him, he's terrified."

"I don't _care_ what he looks like. We need to make him talk." 

"Maybe we should lock him out in the rain and watch him dance." Jongdae laughs high and erratic at his own suggestion. 

Across the room, Sehun sees Lu Han flinch. "No, Jongdae. He's already had his share of that, from the looks of things. I'm sure we can come to another agreement. Right, kid?" Sehun nods enthusiastically, grasping onto the lifeline Lu Han has mercifully tossed him.

"Where are the kids?" Kyungsoo asks, readjusting his hold on the gun.

"Upstairs, asleep."

"Good. Don't let them come down. They shouldn't see this."

Lu Han opens his mouth to protest and the muscular man steps toward Kyungsoo, a hand raised, but they're not fast enough. Kyungsoo levels the gun at Sehun's hand and tightens his finger on the trigger. Sehun squeezes his eyes closed.

"Sehun?" a familiar voice asks. Footsteps thunder down the stairs. "Kyungsoo, put the gun down! What the hell?" Warm hands land on his shoulders and Sehun opens his eyes. 

Staring down at him is none other than Zitao, his face scrunched in concern. "Shit, you look awful. They didn't hurt you, did they?" Sehun shakes his head, body sagging even as his head spins with adrenalin.

Zitao straightens to face Kyungsoo, his body between Sehun and the gun. "I don't know what's going on, but Sehun is my friend and you need to put the gun down."

"How long have you known him? Are you sure he can be trusted?" Kyungsoo sounds skeptical.

"We've been trading for almost three years. The food you've been eating for the past month? Came from him. Yeah, I'm sure I trust him."

Kyungsoo still looks unconvinced, but Lu Han and the other man are standing beside him now, ready to intervene. Kyungsoo looks at Sehun hard before letting out a breath. "Take him to the spare bedroom until the rain lets up. Someone watch him the whole time-- _not_ you, Zitao." Zitao's closes his mouth from where he'd already begun to volunteer.

"I will," Lu Han offers. He takes the gun from Kyungsoo's hands and Sehun feels about a hundred times safer already. 

"No one but Lu Han is to see him until we decide what to do with him." Kyungsoo goes into the kitchen without another word. Jongdae slinks in after him, giving Sehun a shadowed look as he passes.

Zitao helps him to his feet and leads him to the staircase. "Kyungsoo's actually really nice. He probably wouldn't have shot you." Sehun shakes his head and lets out an incredulous, hysterical laugh.

He's glad Zitao is beside him because his legs are shaking beneath him as he climbs the stairs. The adrenalin is seeping from his bloodstream slowly, the pain of his stinging face and hands resurfacing to nag at him. His vision is blurring.

Zitao leads him into a hallway and opens what might be the second or third door on the right. "I'll come see you again before you leave. Lu Han will look after you." Sehun walks into the bedroom with Lu Han following him, rifle still in his hands. Zitao waves once before Lu Han nudges the door shut behind him.

Sehun sits on the floral bedspread, his limbs suddenly too weak to hold him up, as Lu Han settles himself on the floor by the door. Thankfully, he sets the gun down too. Sehun's hands are shaking and his vision is starting to blur badly. Lu Han seems to be looking straight at him and it's unnerving, so Sehun lies back on the bed and tries to breathe. The rain is still coming down hard outside.

After a few minutes, he hears the door click open. "Hey. Hey, Soojung!" Lu Han calls in a hushed whisper. "Over here."

Light footsteps approach the room and Sehun rolls into his side so he can see what's going on. Lu Han has his head stuck out the door. Through the gap Sehun sees a flash of long dark hair, and what might be patterned pyjama pants. 

"What is it?" a female voice asks, sounding vaguely annoyed but curious.

"Can you wake up Yixing and bring him here?" Lu Han asks as the girl outside shifts like she's trying to peer inside the room.

"Are you sure? I thought I heard Kyungsoo say..."

"Kyungsoo gets carried away sometimes. He needs to see Yixing," Lu Han says firmly.

"Okay," she says, after a moment of contemplation. He hears her walk away and after that, Sehun's eyes burn so badly that he has to keep them closed. A few minutes later a new voice, soft and vague, emanates from the doorway, but he can't make out what it’s saying, nor what Lu Han says as he replies in a gentle murmur.

Then footsteps are approaching him slowly, and Sehun can't help but cringe away. "Sehun, right?" a voice asks, and Sehun croaks out an affirmative. "Hi, my name's Yixing. Are you able to sit up?"

Sehun manages to slide back on the sheets and lean on the headboard, after hitting his head once because he misjudges the distance. He feels the mattress dip beside him, and a moment later there's a fleeting pressure just below his eye. "Can you open your eyes for me?" Yixing says, and Sehun tries but his eyelids are like sandpaper and his eyes feel too raw to open more than a few millimeters. He whimpers aloud.

"Shh, it's okay. Don’t hurt yourself." Yixing's voice is low, soothing. "Lu Han, can you pass me the saline solution and a towel?" Sehun feels the weight of a towel settle around his neck. "Tilt your head back for me, Sehun. I'm going to rinse your eyes out. It might sting a little at first but it'll help."

Yixing's right, it does sting, but after blinking for a few long minutes, he can see again. Yixing turns out to be a man in his thirties, with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail at his nape and a perpetual smile. He smoothes something over Sehun's face and hands that smells strange but is cold and numbing on his burns.

"He'll be fine," Yixing tells Lu Han, just outside the door, "give him plenty of water. Food too if he wants it."

"Thanks, Xing," Lu Han says. Fabrics shifts and Yixing makes a small, contented hum. They're embracing, Sehun suddenly realises.

"I'm going back to bed," Yixing says, a strange lilt to his voice. There are sounds of bodies shifting, then Lu Han groans quietly as Yixing lets out a muffled laugh. "Join me?" Sehun's face feels hot, and not from the burns. 

"Can't. Guard duty," Lu Han grits out.

"That's a shame," Yixing says mischievously. He must do something good because Lu Han's head falls back against the wall with a hollow _thunk_. Sehun tries to stop listening but there's not a lot to distract himself with.

"You're the worst," Lu Han mutters lowly. “The actual worst.” 

Yixing just laughs. "Goodnight, Lu Han."

Lu Han comes back in after a minute, hair slightly messier but face betraying nothing. He sits on the floor beside the door and leans back, eyes closed and gun resting on the floor against his thigh.

While Lu Han's presence is not exactly soothing, he's far too discerning for that, he's quiet and still and Sehun soon falls into an exhausted, restless sleep.

 

 

Sehun looks up at the stars he'll never know. They hover above him, distant and beautiful and so bright it hurts. He reaches out but his fingertips meet nothing but air.

 _You can’t touch them_ , a voice tells him sadly. He turns to see Jongin, his face blazing silver with starlight. _You can’t touch them or they’ll fall_. Jongin’s bottom lip quivers and a single tear slips down his cheek.

Every star in the sky can turn to ash for all Sehun cares, as long as the ones in Jongin's eyes will stop sliding down his cheeks. Sehun reaches for him, but a single one of his tears hits the ground and explodes into a whirlwind of sand. Jongin is swallowed whole in seconds. Sehun screams his name but the wind rips the air from his lungs.

There’s a deafening bang. He turns to see Kyungsoo, a smoking rifle in his hands. He reloads and fires again, into the centre of the whirlwind.

 _You did this,_ he tells Sehun, dark eyes accusatory. _This is your fault_.

Jongdae slinks out from behind Kyungsoo, insubstantial and wraith-like. _Dance_ , he rasps at Sehun, _dance for us_.

Kyungsoo fires again. _Dance, pretty boy! Dance!_ Jongdae opens his mouth in a screaming laugh and the wind howls along with him and Sehun is terrified beyond belief.

 _You did this_. Kyungsoo tells him again. He levels the gun at Sehun. _You can only blame yourself for this_. He fires. The shot is deafening and Sehun’s whole body jerks. He shoots three more times, each shot louder than the last. Sehun falls to his knees. 

The wind is moaning his name in his ear. _Sehun. Sehunnnnn._ He looks up. It’s raining stars. _Sehun, wake up_.

Sehun gasps and bolts upright. It takes a moment for him to remember where he is. Acid rain. A rifle. Zitao. The spare bedroom. Right.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Lu Han is beside him, setting a bottle of water and a small bowl of food on the nightstand. “I thought you might be hungry.”

There’s rapid fire coughing from somewhere nearby, loud like gunfire. Sehun jumps and Lu Han’s jaw tightens. He decides not to ask. “Thank you,” he says instead, unscrewing the lid from the bottle of water and gulping down half in one long drag. “For this, and for not letting Kyungsoo shoot me.”

Lu Han snorts. “S’fine, kid. Don’t mention it.” He settles himself down by the door again, on a thin sleeping mat that he must’ve dragged in while Sehun was out. Originally Sehun had thought Lu Han couldn't be older than thirty, but in the darkness he looks weary, ancient.

Sehun pulls himself up in bed. The only light is seeping in from the cracked open door and the rain has stopped. “What time is it?”

“Almost nightfall. Stopped raining about an hour ago,” Lu Han says.

“Shit.” Sehun runs a hand through his hair. Jongin will be home by now, and probably panicking.

“Got somewhere to be?” Lu Han asks, eyebrow arching

“Sorta. I gotta go.” He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, slipping his feet into his boots.

“Whoa, hold up,” Lu Han says. “You can’t leave. It’s not safe around here at night.”

“I have to. Someone’s waiting for me. He’ll be worried.” Sehun leans down to lace up his boots.

Lu Han looks bemused. “I'm sure your friend can cope without you for one night. Besides, I can't let you leave." Sehun stills and looks up, and Lu Han shrugs apologetically at him. "Kyungsoo’s orders. You’re to be escorted back in the morning. He wants to know where you live. An ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ kind of thing." Lu Han's eye roll shows what he thinks of Kyungsoo's reasoning. Sehun quietly agrees, but he's not the one with the gun so he's not about to push it.

After a few mouthfuls of food, he gingerly lies back down in bed. His hands and face tingle a bit, but they don't hurt.

"Zitao tells me you're into science," Lu Han says abruptly. 

"Yeah, I guess. Just a hobby, really," Sehun says noncommittally.

Lu Han hums. "What kind of science?"

"Chemistry mainly. But physics is cool too."

Lu Han looks at him appraisingly, nods slowly. "I used to be an engineer, before. Physics is very cool." Sehun thinks that, somehow, that makes a lot of sense. Lu Han seems a lot like himself, calm and calculating.

"I... would've liked to be an engineer, I think," Sehun says slowly. 

Lu Han grins at him. "So what kind of things can you do with chemistry?"

Zitao barges in halfway through Sehun's explanation of how to recharge a battery using a homemade cell. He looks aghast when he catches onto their conversation. "Oh my god, there's two of them," he says, leaning on the doorframe and burying his face in his hands.

Lu Han smacks him on the calf as Sehun frowns at him. "Won't you get in trouble with Kyungsoo for being in here?"

"Our fearless leader is currently passed out in an armchair with his face in a book so no, I don't think I will," Zitao says smugly. Lu Han rolls his eyes but doesn't comment or order Zitao out.

A barrage of rapid-fire coughing breaks through the walls. Zitao's smile wavers and Lu Han stills. Sehun glances between the two nervously, and then towards the wall the sounds had come from. There's one more weak, rattling cough, then silence. Zitao snaps out of it quickly, flopping on the end of the bed and crushing Sehun's legs, whining to Lu Han about something Kyungsoo did, or rather hadn't let him do.

Whatever Zitao's talking about isn't terribly interesting, but his familiar presence is soothing despite the fact that Sehun's legs are going numb from his substantial weight. Slowly but surely, he drifts back into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

 

 

When he next wakes it is not Lu Han but Yixing leaning over him. He beams down at him as Sehun cracks open an eye. "Good morning. Your burns are looking better."

Sehun sits up, rolling his neck with a few loud pops. "They feel better. Thanks."

Yixing dimples at him. "Lu Han's gone out, but he wanted me to tell you goodbye and that he hopes you two can finish your conversation sometime."

Sehun bites back a smile. "Tell him I'd like that."

"I'm going to find you a spare coat, yours is completely shredded. You should eat quickly and then head out. Minseok's ready to take you back."

"Minseok?" Sehun asks, but Yixing has already bustled out, a warm bowl of some kind of thick stew left on the nightstand.

After eating and gratefully taking the coat Yixing brings him, Sehun finds out that Minseok is the short man from yesterday who'd come downstairs with Lu Han. Yixing passes him the gun, and Minseok slings it over his back in one practiced movement. It'd looked out of place in the doctor's soft hands, but Sehun soon finds he prefers that over the fearsome combination of the gun and Minseok's bulging biceps.

Minseok nods curtly at Sehun, then turns and walks away. "He wants you to follow him," Yixing supplies helpfully. "He doesn't really talk much." Sehun stumbles to catch up, waving goodbye to a cheerful Yixing over his shoulder. They don't run into anyone else downstairs, which Sehun is thankful for. He's still wary of Kyungsoo despite Zitao's reassurances, and frankly Jongdae terrifies him.

It's cold outside but the air is dry and crisp. It’s unpleasant against his skin but Sehun prefers it this way. He could do without the rain for a while. Once they reach the street, Minseok makes a sweeping gesture at him, which Sehun thinks means _lead the way_. Minseok follows when he turns left and starts walking, so Sehun assumes he guessed right.

They make it about a hundred meters down the road when they hear shouting behind them. Minseok's hand is at the gun in an instant, but when they turn it's only Zitao, running after them with uncoordinated bounds and holding something large over his shoulder. By the time he reaches them he's panting hard. Minseok raises an eyebrow.

Zitao straightens and smiles like he's bestowing the gift of life upon them. "I'm coming with you!" He readjusts the package on his shoulder, which Sehun can now see is a big canteen of water.

Minseok seems indifferent. Sehun bites his lip and eyes the water. "Won't you get in trouble for this?"

"For the water? Nah." Zitao grins. "Kyungsoo was the one who dumped it in my lap. Bastard even had the nerve to tell me to run because you'd already left. See, he's not all bad."

Sehun blinks. "No," he says slowly. "I guess not." Zitao throws him a smug _I told you so_ look and Sehun kicks at him haphazardly.

The walk is certainly less quiet with Zitao along, which Sehun is thankful for. Minseok isn't hostile but he's certainly not one for small talk, and quickly drops back to walk behind Zitao and Sehun. Zitao's presence also means Sehun has the opportunity to ask about something that's been nagging at him since last night.

"Zitao? Who was coughing in the room next door?" 

Zitao's face clouds. "Oh. That was Joonmyun. He's... not well."

"Oh. Is he gonna be okay? Lu Han seemed really upset, is all." Sehun knows he's prying and he's not proud of it but he honestly can't help himself.

Zitao is silent for a minute. "He's been sick for a while," is all he says. It's with a morbid fascination that Sehun wishes he'd elaborate. He's lucky that Zitao's an irrepressible chatterbox. "He used to be our leader. Kyungsoo only took over once he got sick."

Sehun nods. "How long ago was that?"

"Just after he brought Jongdae home, so maybe... three months?"

Sehun does a double take. "I'm sorry-- brought Jongdae home? What is he, a stray kitten?"

Zitao huffs. "I guess I should explain, then. Everyone in our house, all nine of us, used to live in the sharehouses." Sehun sucks in a breath but Zitao just continues, unfazed. "Through some superhuman feat of willpower, Joonmyun managed to get himself out and get clean. He made it his duty to do help others do the same. Lu Han first, then Minseok, Yixing, and so on. That's why Lu Han was upset; we all owe Joonmyun our lives. I've been out for nearly four years. And Jongdae just a few months. That's why he's still a little... well, you met him."

Sehun nods gravely. This certainly explains a lot of the things he'd seen. "Kyungsoo's new too, right?"

A high, merry laugh rings out behind them. To his shock, Sehun turns to see Minseok with his head thrown back in mirth, his eyes curving into little slits and his gums showing.

Zitao is laughing too. "No. That's just Kyungsoo."

"Oh." Sehun feels a little bad, but at least the sombre mood has dispersed and Zitao once more fills the air with his mindless chatter. The walk passes quickly, until they're drawing close to the house.

"It's just down this street," Sehun says. Minseok's expression doesn't change, but he falls into step beside Zitao and Sehun again, hand lightly on the butt of the gun. 

Zitao, on the other hand, is practically vibrating with excitement. "I get to meet your friend?"

Sehun sighs. "I guess so. Just... try not to make any sudden movements." Jongin gets skittish around new people and, well, Zitao can be a little over enthusiastic.

Sehun leads the way as they approach the house. He squints as he nears, noticing what looks like a large package on the front steps. It's only as he walks up the path and the package raises its head that he realises what, or rather who, it is.

Jongin is staring up at him with the most enormous, most tragic eyes he's ever seen. "Sehun?" he asks, disbelieving. He tears his eyes from Sehun and visibly shrinks when he notices Minseok and Zitao, eyes lingering on the gun slung over Minseok's back. His panicked gaze seeks out Sehun. "Who are they?"

"This is Zitao and Minseok," Sehun says, gesturing. Jongin still looks terribly confused but Sehun shoots him a significant look. _Later_. Jongin must understand, because he doesn’t ask any more questions.

Zitao is inspecting Jongin with a look of curious delight. “Hi!” he practically shouts, striding toward him. Jongin flinches back like a cornered animal and Sehun reaches for Zitao but Minseok gets there first, hauling him back by the collar. Zitao makes a strangled sound and clutches his throat.

“Enough, Zitao. We’re going home.” Minseok’s voice is unassuming and a little quiet, just like the rest of him. _Thank you_ , Sehun mouths at him, and Minseok’s mouth curves up into a fleeting grin.

Zitao pouts but Minseok’s grip is firm. After a strangled but heartfelt goodbye from Zitao, the two are gone. 

He turns to Jongin. There are dark, dark circles beneath his eyes and even though he’s swathed in blankets Sehun can see him shivering. Something soft and sickening dances in the base of his stomach. Guilt. “Let’s go inside.”

Jongin gets to his feet, swaying a little under the weight of the blankets. Once they’re inside, Sehun drops heavily onto the couch, rubbing his eyes. After a moment of hesitation, he senses Jongin shuffle up and flop down beside him, pressing into him like a small animal seeking warmth.

“I came home just before nightfall,” Jongin says, voice muffled into the blankets. “There was water everywhere and no sign of you except for your fucking socks hanging on the bed.” Sehun laughs a little. Jongin shuffles closer and says, in the tiniest voice, "I've never been so scared in my life."

Something seizes in Sehun's chest. “Jongin, I'm so... I had to go, I really didn't have a choice--"

“I don't care,” Jongin says fiercely. He’s listing to one side now, his shoulder digging into Sehun’s stomach. He yawns loudly. He probably hasn't slept. “I don't care.” He repeats, his voice clouded with fatigue. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.” He shuffles a bit, and then goes limp against Sehun’s side.

Sehun looks down at Jongin's sleeping face and feels something warm and nameless surge inside him. He's never stared at the sun before, but he thinks it might feel a bit like this; bright, beautiful, painful.

 

 

Back when the world felt warmer, brighter, Sehun's mother used to spend afternoons in the living room surrounded by mounds of coloured yarn, knitting needles clacking out a rhythm in her hands. Once, out of curiousity, Sehun had pulled one of the strings when his mother left the room. It was fascinating, almost addictive, to watch the red unravel so easily beneath his hands. But suddenly there was no sweater left, only a puddle of red yarn at his feet.

His mother had returned to find him crying on the floor, tiny hands desperately trying to fix what he'd done.

"It's okay, Sehunnie, don't cry," she'd soothed, taking him into her arms. "It's not broken, just unravelled. We can start again, I'll show you." And she'd knitted it back into shape with Sehun on her lap, his fists clenched around the ends of the knitting needles and his brow furrowed in fierce concentration.

Life, however, is not so easily fixed.

Sehun's began to unravel when he woke one morning to wheezing coughs from down the hall. With wide eyes and socked feet, he padded down the hallway and peered inside his parents' bedroom. Had it always been this dark in here? Was there always this lingering smell of sharpness, of danger?

His father's side of the bed was empty. He crept to the other side, heart thundering in his chest. This time it was not red yarn on the floor but something else, sticky and shiny and smelling of rust--

"Sehun," his mother whispered from the bed. She didn't sound right, but it looked like her, albeit pale and shaking, and it felt like her too when he crawled under the covers beside her. Her breath rattled thickly in her lungs and she smiled at him even as tears ran down her cheeks.

"Sehunnie," she gasped out, and Sehun was so, so scared. "I'm sorry."

"Please don't cry," Sehun whimpered. "Mama, if you're sick we can fix it. Dad can fix it, right?"

She shook her head a little, her chest heaving in a soundless, spasmodic cough. Her breaths were coming shallower, erratic.

"I love you. Always." Sehun clutched her icy hand between his and cried as he watched the light leave her eyes.

Some time later the front door opened and closed. Footfalls thudded up the hallway, and Sehun looked up to find his father stilled in the doorway. He let out a long, shuddery breath and made a sound like a wounded animal. He was by the bed in two big steps, and Sehun watched as his father eyes, gazing down at his mother's still chest, lost their light too. He stumbled back and hit the wall hard. Sehun watched as the pot of flowers sitting there fell, shattered against the carpet, green and brown on grey.

"Dad, her flowers," Sehun whispered. They were called forget-me-nots, his mother had told him.

"I don't understand," his father said. His face was white but his eyes were red. Sehun might've been young, but he did understand. He'd seen the way his mother would lock herself in the bathroom and cough until her throat was raw, how she'd eaten less and less until she'd become a mere shadow of herself, how walking from the couch to the dining table made her breathless.

"Why didn't you help her, Dad?" Sehun asks, his voice breaking over a sob. "Why didn't you save her?"

His father looked at him hard, and Sehun suddenly felt cold and afraid. "Get out."

"But Dad, I--"

"Get out!"

So Sehun did. He ran next door to Jongin's house, to his bed, into his arms and wished he could stay there forever. And his father drowned himself in memories, in mourning and in spirits, and to this day refuses to resurface.

 

 

Things settle down soon after Sehun's accidental encounter with Zitao and his friends. Weeks pass and Sehun shelters himself in the soft hum of routine, the cocoon of safety he and Jongin have woven around their lives. He really should know better, should have learned by now that nothing lasts forever.

It's late afternoon when Sehun hears voices outside. He freezes, heart pounding, because voices mean people, and people are never a good thing. On silent, socked feet he creeps to the front window. He presses his face to the tiny gap between the slats of wood, and his stomach drops.

He recognises Jongin instantly, but the other three men are complete strangers. One of them is holding a revolver to Jongin's temple.

"Fuck," Sehun mutters. The other two men manhandle Jongin's rucksack off his shoulders and toss the contents onto the ground. Jongin manages to keep his feet and watches, spine rigid, as the men scavenge what they can. Rogues that prey off of travellers are not an uncommon thing. It's even happened to Jongin once or twice, but never this close to home. 

The revolver is still trained on him, but the man holding it is distracted enough that Jongin can angle his body to hide his hands from view behind his back, square with the window. He places one hand flat, parallel to the ground. It's rudimentary, but Sehun understands his meaning. _Stay there_.

And Sehun would've, even though Jongin had sat on the front step for hours waiting for him, had paled but not run at the sight of Minseok with a gun. But because he's a coward, he would've followed Jongin's directions and kept himself hidden, had his eyes not settled on a jar sitting in the sand a few feet from Jongin and the men.

It must've been thrown to the ground when Jongin's rucksack was torn open, because a steady stream of clear liquid is leaking out a large crack in the glass. The men don't notice it, even as it winds between them. Sehun squints at the label. He's the only one at the right vantage point to see it, and even then it's almost too far away. Sehun mouths out the English letters slowly, until he can piece the word together.

 _Acetone_. Also commonly referred to as propan-2-one. Notable because it is the simplest of the ketones and for its extremely low flash point. Sehun watches as a stream of the liquid crawls along the sand, toward the crude torch one of the men had set down beside him, its open flame licking hungrily.

Sehun's blood freezes in his veins, and then he is running, running for the front door and throwing it open. 

"Your torch!" he shouts, "Pick up your torch!" Sehun hears Jongin yell his name and then the repeated crack of gunfire. The ground explodes into dust around him. It settles a few moments later and Sehun sees Jongin locked in a struggle with the shooter, one hand around the man's wrist, pointing the gun skyward. The look on his face is pure thunder.

The other two men have abandoned their packs and are running toward Sehun. "No! You don't understand, acetone is--" The first man reaches him, and they go sprawling into the dirt. He's pinned.

He turns his head to the side and seeks Jongin desperately. "Run!" he screams. Jongin's still tangled with the other man, but his eyes lock with Sehun's for a brief, heart-stopping moment. "Jongin, _run!_ Get away from--"

A deafening _boom_. The world explodes into shades of red and white. 

Dust goes flying and even as it begins to settle Sehun's ears are still ringing, his limbs still numb. Everything is moving too slow. The men above him are gone. Sehun's head spins as he finally sits up. Everything sounds muted, like his ears are stuffed full of cotton wool. There are small flames all around, burning away the last traces of acetone and clinging to the belongings scattered on the ground. Sehun gets unsteadily to his feet. 

There's a particularly large flame amongst the others. Feeling sick, Sehun stumbles over. He gets close enough to make out a boot, a blackened hand and, god, a head of hair that is definitely blond beneath the char. He doubles over and throws up into the sand. When he's done he straightens and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Jongin!" he yells. It sounds muted through his own ears, so he screams it again, louder this time.

And that's when he sees him. Sprawled on the ground, farther away than Sehun would've thought possible and utterly, heart-stoppingly still. Sehun runs over as fast as his shaking legs will take him.

He drops to his knees. Jongin's eyes are closed and his shirt is burned to shreds. But, as Sehun watches, his chest rises and falls tentatively. Sehun sags in relief.

"Oh fuck, Jongin.” Sehun’s breath leaves him in a shuddering exhale. “Thank god." Then his eyes settle on the lower half of Jongin's body.

His right pant leg has burned off to the knee. His skin is raw and angry, but not ruined. Jongin's left leg, though, is charred beyond recognition. His boot is melted onto his foot and everything looks slightly the wrong shape. There's a puddle growing around him too, thick and dark in the flickering firelight. He must've been hit by a piece of shrapnel, somewhere.

And it's then that he notices that Jongin is deathly pale, his breathing shallow. Sehun reaches out to touch his forehead. It is ice beneath his fingertips.

Jongin needs help. He needs help or he will die.

Sehun swallows down the dread and fear at the back of his throat, props Jongin's body upright and crouches beside him, gently tipping his body until all his weight is resting against Sehun’s back. Jongin's arms sling over his shoulders. Taking hold of Jongin's legs, Sehun forces himself to his feet and takes a few steps. He nearly crumples under the extra weight, only sheer force of will keeping him on his feet.

He starts walking east. Jongin's breath is coming shallow and quick in his ear, and Sehun's arms are numb after ten minutes. He thinks about Jongin, seven years old and wondering aloud what his parents might've been like. He thinks about Jongin, twelve years old and sitting in silence by Sehun's side through a whole night after they buried his mother. He thinks about Jongin, fourteen and fiercely holding back tears after his sisters told him goodbye one morning and never came back. Sehun keeps going.

There's a tiny, pained sound in his ear. Jongin squirms a little against his back, and whimpers. "Sehun?" he pants out, between harsh breaths.

"I'm right here," Sehun says. 

"Sehun, there's something wrong with my leg." He sounds terrified. Sehun glances down at Jongin's ruined leg and wishes he hadn't.

"I'm taking you to a doctor. It'll be okay."

"It hurts." Jongin shudders against him and his face feels wet where it presses into the side of Sehun's neck.

"I know. I'm sorry." The wetness somehow finds its way onto Sehun's cheeks too.

"I'm so scared," Jongin whispers, and then goes limp and unresponsive against Sehun's back.

"So am I," Sehun admits into the wind a few minutes later. He keeps walking.

And after what feels like a lifetime but might've only been just enough time for gravity to realign and anchor him to the boy on his back rather than the earth beneath his feet, Sehun reaches his destination.

He slumps against the wall and kicks at the door with his boot, hands still hooked beneath Jongin's legs. "Zitao! Lu Han! Someone, please!"

The door slides open a crack, to reveal wide eyes that flash in recognition. The door swings open all the way to reveal a vaguely familiar girl. It takes Sehun a moment to remember her name. Soojung. 

She turns and shouts, "Yixing! Downstairs, now!" as Sehun stumbles through the door on numb legs. He follows Soojung into the lounge room where Kyungsoo and Minseok are staring up at him in shock.

But then Yixing is there, closely trailed by Lu Han, his face only registering the briefest surprise before it settles into determination. "Bring him into the kitchen." 

Sehun goes through the door to his right and lets Lu Han and Yixing each take one of Jongin's sides, slowly lowering him back onto the dining table. Sehun's muscles sing out in relief but his heart is still wrenching painfully in his chest. He slumps back against a wall, eyes riveted on Jongin's slack face.

"Lu Han, get my kit from upstairs. Bring Juhyun down here too." Sehun barely hears Yixing's voice over the ringing in his ears, but it's steadiness is soothing. "Soojung, boil as much water as you can, and quickly."

With surprising strength, Yixing rips what remains of Jongin's shirt off. It's dark with blood. Yixing's practiced fingers quickly find the source, a deep gash at Jongin's waist that's still bleeding far too much.

Lu Han, carrying a large box, and a small woman Sehun doesn't recognise enter the kitchen. "Juhyun," Yixing says without looking up, "how quickly can you disinfect and stitch this?" 

She barely blinks at the scene in front of her. "Five minutes."

"Good. Do that, then help me with these burns."

Yixing cuts away Jongin's pants to the mid-thigh. His left leg looks worse in the harsh light of the kitchen than it had in the tentative daylight. "This won't heal on its own," Yixing murmurs. "I'm going to have to cut away the necrotic tissue by hand." Lu Han goes very pale and abruptly decides he's needed elsewhere.

Soojung is back with a pot of boiling water, which she sets on the counter. Juhyun has washed out Jongin's wound and uses the water to sterilise a needle. Sehun has to look away at the first press of steel into flesh.

But it gets a whole lot worse when Yixing starts to cut away at Jongin's leg with a scalpel. The flesh is leathery and comes away far too easily. Sehun looks away but even the sound is enough to make his stomach churn. To his surprise Soojung is still there, holding Jongin's leg in position with steady hands and a blank face as Yixing works. Sehun presses back against the wall and lists the elements in order of atomic number in his head so he doesn't pass out.

"Sehun, are you staying?" Yixing's voice cuts into his thoughts.

"Yes," Sehun says immediately, because really there is no other option. He's not leaving Jongin like this.

"Then make yourself useful. He's starting to come around."

"Fuck," Sehun mutters, his eyes flying open. He stumbles into a dining chair by Jongin's head. Yixing is right. His eyes are flickering under their lids and he whimpers breathily at every exhale. Abruptly, his eyes fly open and he tries to pull himself into a sitting position.

"Why-- oh my god, my _leg_." His eyes swing to Sehun, confused and terrified. "Sehun? What..." Yixing digs his scalpel in and Jongin's voice breaks over a groan. 

"Don't you have any painkillers? Anaesthetic?" Sehun asks through gritted teeth as Jongin writhes against the table.

"We don’t, but there's no point anyway, the nerves are all dead. He's probably not feeling much, to be honest," Yixing says. "It's mostly in his head. Keep him distracted." Juhyun has finished stitching the wound and moves to take Soojung's place.

He reaches down and takes Jongin's hand, and Jongin's hazy eyes track him. "You're fucking heavy, did you know that?" Sehun tells him, trying to keep the tremors out of his voice.

"Shut up, am not," Jongin slurs, and Yixing snorts in laughter. Soojung sits across from Sehun at Jongin's other side, holding a cup and a cloth. She dips the cloth and holds it up to Jongin's lips.

"Drink this. It'll help." She squeezes the cloth into Jongin's open mouth and his eyes go comically wide. He splutters a bit before he swallows.

"What the hell is that?" Sehun demands.

Soojung's face is blank as she holds the cloth to Jongin's lips again, but Sehun gets the vague impression that she's trying not to laugh. "Gin."

"Smart girl," Yixing murmurs from where he's hunched over Jongin's ruined leg. Sehun doesn't approve but, when Jongin's eyelids start to droop half an hour later, he concedes that Soojung might've been onto something.

It takes another two hours for Yixing to finish on Jongin's leg. He dresses it in a damp bandage. "So the skin doesn't grow back attached to the bandage," Yixing explains, and Sehun shudders. After rubbing Jongin's other leg in some of the salve he'd used on Sehun, Yixing peels off his rubber gloves and sits down with a heavy exhale opposite Sehun.

Sehun looks down at Jongin, sleeping and serene. "I can't even begin to-- He's my best friend, and I… Thank you, Yixing."

Yixing looks haunted. "Don't thank me yet," he mutters.

"What do you mean? You saved him." 

"You're right, he's not going to die of his wounds. But the risk of infection is incredibly high for these kinds of procedures. Even more so considering we don't have the luxury of proper sterilisation right now."

"What happens if he gets an infection?" Sehun swallows hard over the lump in his throat.

"We don't have the medication to try to treat it. Best case scenario, we catch it fast enough to amputate. Worst case, it gets in his bloodstream before we have the chance. If that happens then he doesn't stand much of a chance." Yixing scrapes a hand through his hair, looking weary and ancient and helpless.

"Yixing." Lu Han stands in the doorway. He looks soft and very very young, dressed in a holey sleep shirt and sweats. "Come upstairs. It's late, you need to rest."

Yixing shakes his head. "I’ll stay up."

"No, you won’t." Lu Han's voice is stern but there's something sad and vulnerable in his expression. “Minseok slept all day. He can watch Jongin overnight.”

"Something might happen. It's fine, Han. I'm not tired." Yixing's hands are trembling with fatigue where they rest on the table. He frowns down at them and moves them to his lap, out of sight.

“Yixing.” Something tangible passes between the two men. “Please.” There’s a silent struggle that lasts a few moments, Yixing’s jaw set and Lu Han’s gaze unwavering. Lu Han must win because finally, Yixing sighs and stands.

“You’re staying?” Yixing asks Sehun. He nods. “Good. Wake me up if anything changes.” 

“Goodnight, Sehun,” Lu Han murmurs before slipping out of the room after Yixing. 

Minseok comes in a few minutes later, holding a sleeping mat and pillow. He indicates Jongin with a jerk of his head. Together they slip the sleeping mat under Jongin and manage to not wake him. Sehun slides the pillow beneath his head with careful hands as Minseok settles himself in a chair by the wall and pulls out a book of crosswords.

“You’re sure you don’t mind watching him?” Minseok grins toothily, shakes his head. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll just...”

He ends up on one of the horrific floral couch in the lounge a few metres away. He can’t see Minseok at this angle, but he can see Jongin and, if he squints, the steady rise and fall of his chest. His exhaustion catches up with him all at once and his eyes drag closed.

Sehun dreams of darkness, of fire, of bodies that break and stars that live forever.

 

 

By some miracle, two weeks pass and Jongin's leg shows no signs of infection.

"Ridiculous," Yixing says, but he's smiling. "I was certain I'd have to cut your leg off before the week was out." 

Jongin's eyes dart down to his very much attached left leg and then settle nervously back on Yixing. The doctor just laughs and ruffles Jongin's hair.

Once he'd been strong enough they'd moved Jongin upstairs and into the spare bedroom. Sehun had slept on the floor beside him for the past fortnight and woken each morning to the sound of Lu Han belting old Chinese ballads down the corridor. The first few days he was confined to the room, as per Kyungsoo's orders. For such a small man he had a lot of anger pent up in him.

"He just wants to protect us. He means well," Lu Han had said. Sehun didn't mind so much anyway; if Yixing wasn't checking and redressing Jongin's burns then Zitao or Lu Han would come in and keep him company.

By the time Jongin was fully lucid Kyungsoo had grown sick of ignoring Zitao's passionate campaigning on Sehun's behalf and he was allowed to roam freely. He ended up staying in his room mostly anyway, save for trips to the bathroom or for food. Now that Jongin was awake but still bedridden he didn't like to leave him alone. 

There was also the matter of Soojung's cat Lollipop, a huge ball of angry white fur that seemed to have an inbuilt distaste for anyone who wasn't Soojung or, for some reason, Jongdae. She'd taken a special disliking to Sehun and after a few bitten ankles he'd learned it was easier to stay out of her way.

"I talked to Yixing today, while you were in the bathroom," Jongin says one evening. He's been up and about on crutches for the past few days. His leg is still bandaged and unable to bear weight, but he's improving. "He thinks he and Lu Han could convince Kyungsoo to let us stay here permanently, if we wanted."

Sehun rolls onto his side to look at Jongin. "Do you? Want to, I mean."

Jongin bites his lip. "I don't know. I really like Lu Han and Yixing, and it's definitely safer to stay in a big group, but..."

"But it's not home," Sehun finishes, and Jongin nods vigorously. Home is more than a roof over their heads. It's the memories on the walls like a second coat of paint, the cracks in the mortar that reappear no matter how many times they patch them up, the tile in the kitchen that Jongin had chipped by taking a spectacular fall trying to slide the length of the room in his socks. "Yeah, I know."

So they leave the next morning, Sehun carrying a borrowed pack and Jongin a little unsteady but smiling on his crutches. Lu Han and Yixing wave from the front doors while Zitao, because he's an idiot, brandishes a handkerchief and wails dramatically that he hopes they'll return from war soon.

It takes far longer to walk home than it would've taken Sehun on his own. He forces them to stop and take a break every twenty minutes, despite Jongin insisting he's not tired even when his arms shake as they grip his crutches. 

When they reach the front gate, Jongin looks to him with something indecipherable in his eyes. It shines like gratitude, but the edges swim dark with guilt. "I didn't know it was this far. When Yixing told me you carried me on your back, I thought it couldn't possibly be this far."

Sehun shrugs. "It wasn't as hard as you'd expect." And he's telling the truth. He'd walk double, triple, ten times that distance every day if it meant Jongin would still be waiting at the end.

The house is exactly as they'd left it two weeks ago, though covered with a fine layer of dust. Sehun helps Jongin settle on the couch, props his leg on a pillow and brings him water and food. 

"Sehun, oh my god!" Jongin ends up laughing. He bats Sehun's hands away as they fuss around him, fluffing pillows. "Relax, I'm fine. Go to your nerd cave." Sehun opens his mouth to protest but Jongin gives him a mock stern look. "Go. Now."

Sehun huffs but leaves Jongin alone and goes into the garage. He comes back out an hour later preoccupied, head satisfyingly full of numbers and formulae.

It's only when he sits beside Jongin that he realises he's staring straight ahead, motionless. He's still holding the bottle of water Sehun had given him. It's full, and his food is untouched too. Somehow, Sehun knows Jongin hasn't moved since he left him here an hour ago. His leg is stretched out uselessly in front of him.

"Jongin?" Sehun says tentatively, and Jongin turns, blinks at him slowly like he's waking from a dream. The look on his face is one of realisation. Realisation and fear. "Jongin, what's wrong?" 

Jongin's brow furrows. "I don't know," he says slowly, and Sehun knows he's telling the truth.

And as Sehun looks at Jongin's deeply troubled expression, he can almost feel red yarn slipping between his fingers and all that remains of his life unravelling before his eyes.

 

 

Sehun knows a lot of things. He knows which compounds will, when injected into the bloodstream, kill a man in seconds and which will kill agonisingly slowly, over weeks, months. He knows the mass of the planet beneath them and what it's composed of, and he can calculate the age of every star in the universe.

But Jongin has always been something of a mystery, ever since he'd clambered over six year old Sehun's back fence one morning and asked, with scratched palms and wide eyes, "What do you think is out there, where there are no people? Will you come with me to find out?" 

And maybe Sehun forgets sometimes, because Jongin's always been right there. Whether it was with antiseptic and bandaids when Sehun was eight and skinned his knees investigating friction, or with silent companionship when Sehun was sixteen and would slink back from home with a black eye and tightly sealed lips. Jongin never knew his parents and Sehun lost both his when his mother died. Not only have they raised each other for the best part of a decade, Jongin is his best friend, his provider, and sometimes the only reason he keeps fighting for survival.

And yet, sometimes Sehun can feel Jongin slipping from his grip, even when he's right beside him. Sometimes, he stares across endless plains of sand on sand and says, "I wonder what's really out there. There has to be something more, you know?" and Sehun doesn't know how to reply, because he is a scientist and Jongin is an explorer and they are as different as the sun and the moon, day and night. 

It just so happens that here, at the end of the world, day and night aren't so different after all. But Sehun knows with the most sickening certainty that if it weren't for the darkness that binds them together like a curse, like a promise, Jongin would drift away with the tides, away to new worlds, and away from Sehun.

 

 

To his credit, Jongin does try. He gets up in the morning and eats and washes with a bucket of warm water in the bathroom, although Sehun brings a stool in and insists Jongin use it because warm water, slick tiles and one leg is an equation that for once Sehun does not want the answer to. Jongin grits his teeth and stays silent while Sehun changes his bandages even though he sobs in his sleep through the night, and he tries to help Sehun around the house, but after the third time he falls he lets Sehun gently take the broom and help him back to the couch.

Sehun knows Jongin is disheartened by the pain, by feeling useless, by the loss of his freedom but he smiles bravely through it all. "It's okay. It won't be like this forever. Only until my leg's healed." 

But when Yixing comes to check his progress a week later, Sehun sees the answer written all over his face. Jongin can see it too, because his entire being deflates and after Yixing leaves he limps to the bedroom, closes the door and does not come out for the rest of the day.

 

 

Sehun manages to salvage a few things from outside on the street that had somehow avoided being caught in the explosion; a few cans of food, Jongin's pocket knife and his rucksack. The blond man is gone, Sehun notes. His friends must've come back for him, because there's no way he stood up and walked away by himself.

Sehun walks out of the bedroom early the next morning to something odd. Jongin sits on the arm of the couch, pulling his rucksack onto his back and slowly doing up all the clips. The straps are straining and taut over Jongin's shoulders and Sehun knows the bag is packed full. Jongin leans down and does up his boots, left before right. Sehun steps back around the corner before Jongin sees him, brow furrowed. He knows what Jongin is doing, because he's seen it a thousand times before. It’s a ritual of sorts, the same routine he used to do every morning before going out into the city.

He hears uneven, clumsy steps and peers back around the corner. Surely enough, Jongin is shuffling toward the door on unsteady feet. He's not using his crutches and Sehun pushes down the urge to go to him and stop him before he falls. There is a quiet, pre-dawn stillness in the house and Sehun knows he should not interrupt whatever it is Jongin is doing.

Just as Sehun had known he would, Jongin reaches up and taps the centre of the doorframe as he goes into the entryway. The wood is showing where the white paint has worn away from all the hundreds of times before. It gives him luck, he says.

Jongin hesitates in front of the door, hand resting on the knob. All his weight is on his right leg, his left lifted until only the toe of his boot touches the ground. For a minute he stands there, utterly still in the darkness save for his hand twitching on the doorknob.

Abruptly, he shrugs out of the pack and throws it to the side. It hits the wall with a loud crash before sliding to the tiles, the stillness lying shattered on the floor with it. Jongin hunches, face pressed against the door and fists clenched by his head. He thumps the door with his fist once, then again, harder. His shoulders are shaking and even though Sehun can't hear it, he knows Jongin is crying.

Sehun slips silently back into the bedroom, equal parts fear and shame. He gets back under the covers and rolls to face the wall, body shivering and eyes wide. Some time later he hears Jongin shuffle in and climb onto his bunk. Sehun lies there for a long time, listening to Jongin's breathing.

And after what feels like an entire night but might've only been long enough for a flash fire to ignite and burn his entire world to the ground, he rolls over and sits up. Jongin is asleep, twined in his blankets, his face slack and vulnerable.

Sehun goes into the lounge room and finds Jongin's pack hanging on a hook beside the door, exactly where it'd been the night before. It's empty, and nothing else in the house is out of place. 

It's as if nothing happened at all, and Sehun wonders what else he's been missing.

 

 

In the two weeks immediately following Jongin's injury, Sehun had spent a lot of time with Lu Han. He was the only person Sehun had ever met who loved the sciences as much as Sehun did and he was fascinating to talk to. Almost as good as the man himself was his extensive collection of textbooks, scientific journals and reference materials packed into a bookshelf in the room he and Yixing shared.

"Borrow anything you like," Lu Han had offered, sitting cross legged on the bed with a book in his lap, reading glasses slipping low on his nose. Sehun had gone through the entire shelf and carefully selected a few volumes that had caught his attention.

"What's this?" Sehun asked curiously, pulling a thin book from where it'd been pushed up against the back of the shelf, behind all the others.

"Oh, that's just a photo book," Lu Han said flippantly. "There's nothing useful in there." The pages were far larger than a normal book. Sehun flipped to a random page and gasped. The night sky was splayed out on the page before him, a thousand pinpricks of white against the deepest black. He turned to the next page and an entire galaxy was spread out in hypnotic, impossible swirls of pink and blue and violet. 

"Can I borrow this, too?" 

Lu Han had looked at him oddly but shrugged. "Sure. Keep it, if you want."

And Sehun had forgotten all about it until now, as he reached for one of the scientific journals beneath it. He remembers Jongin asking him about the stars, what feels like a lifetime ago. He was trapped then too, but in an entirely different way. He weighs the book in his hands and goes out to the lounge room where Jongin is lying on the couch, eyes closed but very much awake.

He holds the book out to Jongin, who blinks his eyes slowly open after sensing Sehun's presence beside him. "What is this?" he asks.

"Lu Han gave it to me. I thought you might like it." Jongin pulls himself up into a sitting position and takes the book, flipping it open to the first page. 

Sehun can pinpoint the exact moment Jongin comes back to life. His eyes light up and his mouth drops open in awe. He's practically _glowing_. "What is this?" he asks, eyes riveted on the book in his lap.

Sehun squints to read the caption in the corner of the page. "The Andromeda galaxy. It's two and a half million light years away, the closest large galaxy to us."

"It's incredible," Jongin breathes. Sehun sits down beside him and watches Jongin watch the stars, something oddly like dread settling in the base of his stomach.

 

 

The more Sehun thinks about it, the more it intensifies. It's not anger or sadness, it's a feeling of coldness that sinks right down to his bones. It hovers like a fine haze over him, a warning, a shadow that whispers worse things are to come from above.

Jongin becomes obsessed with the space book. He spends all his waking hours poring over it on the couch, on his bed, at the kitchen table, and when he reaches the end he flips to the front and starts again. He looks at it by lamplight before he falls asleep, and rolls over and opens it first thing in the morning.

Sehun is glad, because Jongin smiles and laughs and speaks to him with the shine back in his eyes, even if it's only a white glow of reflected starlight and not gold like it used to be, when the light was purely his own and not borrowed from the night sky. But it's still enough to light up Sehun's world, even if it leaves him a little cold.

"Would you go up there, if you could?" Sehun blurts one day, his mouth moving of its own accord.

"Of course," Jongin says, not looking up from the book in his lap.

Something in Sehun's chest throbs painfully. "You can't."

Jongin locks eyes with him. The look in his eyes is resigned, lifeless and utterly despairing. There's no light here. "I know," he says, and Sehun feels the thing in his chest shatter into a thousand pieces.

 

 

The flowerpot is still sitting on the windowsill where he'd left it weeks ago. The surface of the soil inside is still flat and brown and devoid of life, and as Sehun looks down at it he’s suddenly so, so angry. He takes the pot and throws it to the floor with an impossibly loud crash. He hates this world. He hates it. It took his mother from him, and his father along with her. And now it's draining the life from Jongin, right before his eyes.

There's something dark and unspeakable swirling in the back of his mind, a black hole that's dragging him in, bit by bit, and only growing stronger. Sehun's only just starting to recognise it for what it is. An idea.

It haunts his thoughts day and night until finally he can't take it anymore. He scribbles a note for Jongin and leaves it on the kitchen table early one morning. He puts on his boots and coat, steps into the cold, dark dawn and starts walking.

It's Lu Han that answers the door this time. "Sehun?" the older man says, then he takes in the look on Sehun's face. "What's wrong? Is it Jongin's leg? I'll get Yixing."

"No, Jongin is…” The words die in Sehun’s throat, and he swallows harshly. “Jongin's leg is fine. I was looking for you, actually."

"Oh?" Lu Han is curious, but is still looking at Sehun with an edge of concern.

Sehun takes a deep breath. He's never hated anyone as much as he hates himself in this moment. "I need to build a spacecraft."

 

 

Lu Han hunches over the kitchen table, glasses slipping low on his nose and hair messy around his head in a lamp lit halo. "Minseok says the _Shenzhou 9_ is almost completely functional." 

"Almost? What do you mean, almost?" Sehun asks, looking over the blueprints in front of him on the kitchen table.

"There's probably going to be some inevitable damage from a general lack of maintenance. It should be okay, Minseok's confident he can get it all running smoothly." Despite the bags under his eyes, Lu Han is practically vibrating with energy. 

Sehun sighs. He understands Lu Han's enthusiasm, but he's far too exhausted to share it. It's mid-afternoon and they've been at it for hours, ever since Sehun turned up on the doorstep a few hours after dawn. 

As it turned out, Minseok used to work as an aerospace technician at a base just outside the city. He'd been there when the meteor first hit, and in the lull before the chaos set in, had been instructed to supervise a full damage assessment on all the equipment at the facility. One of the largest spacecraft, the _Shenzhou 9_ , had somehow sustained little to no damage and, according to Minseok, was still completely functional when he last saw it almost twenty years ago.

"He's going to head out there tomorrow to double check everything," Lu Han says. "There's not much we can do here in the meantime until we know what we're dealing with."

Sehun leans back in his chair, stretching his back out with satisfying pops. He feels something brush his calf and he jumps a foot in the air, knee slamming painfully against the underside of the table.

There's a sardonic meow from somewhere near his ankles. "Lollipop, damn it!" he grits out, clutching his knee. "Get out of here." The cat gives him a supremely superior look before stalking off to find Soojung. Lu Han is looking down at the papers in front of him so intently that Sehun knows he's trying not to laugh.

Sehun gathers all the papers and books he'd been working from in a neat pile. "I should go, then. I'll be back in a few days."

"Alright," Lu Han says, echoing Sehun as he stands. Sehun hears him following to the front door. "Sehun," he says, as Sehun is swinging his pack onto his shoulders. Sehun stops. Lu Han is looking at him with far too much knowing, far too much concern. "I'll help you do this, even if I don't know why. Just... I want you to be sure you won't regret anything. I like you far too much to let that happen."

Sehun feels too bare under Lu Han's pressing gaze. "I'm sure," he says, "don't worry."

Lu Han looks unconvinced, but steps back. "Okay, then. See you in a few days."

Sehun nods and sets out into the grey haze of the day.

 

 

When he gets home, he sweeps up the dirt in the lounge room. Jongin glances over from the couch, looking like he wants to say something, but ultimately keeps silent. The flowerpot had somehow remained whole when he'd thrown it. It seems that some things get stronger after they've been broken and put back together. He wishes the same were true of people.

Sehun still mightn't know anything about gardening, but he does know a lot about soil chemistry. He plants half of the remaining seeds into the pot with an odd feeling simmering inside him. It's too heavy to be hope, and it takes him a few moments to recognise it. It's determination. 

He makes up a solution of primary nutrients and waters the pale soil with it. He places it back on the windowsill, and Jongin mightn't have any hope or reassurance to give him this time but it's okay because he doesn't need it.

And when he wakes three days later and sets out to see Lu Han, there are the tiniest hints of green peeking out from under the sand.

 

 

Sehun is only a few streets from his destination when he hears it. He looks around abruptly, even as he keeps walking. Behind him is an abandoned supermarket, and curled beneath the front porch is a man.

He's from the sharehouses, Sehun instantly knows. He's seen lost ones who've wandered away often enough, though never this far from home. He can't see the man's face, but the way he's shaking and murmuring, and out in the open like no sane person should be, is indication enough. 

Sehun leaves him there. He's probably on some kind of hallucinogen and could react poorly if approached. There's nothing he can do. Even if he could somehow help the man live through the night, he'd just wander back to the sharehouses at daybreak. Sehun can see how it might be addictive, losing yourself in a chemical reality, but the man is better off left alone. Sehun keeps walking.

When he reaches the house, the front door is unlocked. He lets himself in and walks down the hall into the lounge.

"Yixing?" Lu Han is grasping him by the shoulders the moment he comes into the room. Sehun watches as the hope on his face crumbles at the sight of him. "Oh." He drops his hands and continues to pace, tearing at his hair with a clenched fist.

Soojung sits on the couch watching him, her usually blank face twisted in concern. Lollipop is kneading at her lap and purring urgently.

"Is something wrong?" Sehun asks redundantly. Lu Han's face twists like he's trying to speak, but no words come out.

"Yixing never came home last night," Soojung says tightly. Lu Han lets out a shuddering breath. "We don't know where he is."

"Shit. Where did he say he was going? Should I go get Kyungsoo?"

"No!" Lu Han bursts out suddenly. "Sorry. No, we know where he went. He doesn't want the others to know."

Sehun's brow furrows. "Why? Where is he?"

Lu Han looks like he's about to cry, so Soojung answers. "The sharehouses. He goes sometimes, to help them. We've told him a thousand times not to, that it's too dangerous, but he sneaks out anyway."

"The sharehouses?" Sehun says, feeling something tickle at the back of his thoughts.

"We've been looking for him all morning but the city is too big. He could be anywhere." Lu Han is pale with big dark crescents carved out beneath his eyes. 

Something slots into place in Sehun's mind. "I think I know where he is."

Yixing is still curled up outside the supermarket when they reach him, just as Sehun had predicted. The look on Lu Han's face when he sees him is torn between heartbreak and immense relief. It looks painful. There are tears in his eyes as he kneels and takes Yixing into his arms that Sehun and Soojung pretend not to see.

Between the three of them they manage to get Yixing back to the house in one piece. "Can Juhyun keep a secret?" Lu Han asks Soojung once they've settled Yixing on the bed in his and Lu Han's room.

"From everyone but Joonmyun, yeah," she replies. “I’ll go get her.”

Lu Han leans over Yixing and brushes the hair off his damp face.

"He's taken something." Juhyun says, once she's checked Yixing's vital signs. "Not voluntarily, I'm guessing. You know how it is in there." Lu Han shudders and a shadow passes over Soojung's face. "He's past the worst of it though. He just needs to sleep it off."

"Okay," Lu Han says, exhaling slowly, "okay."

Juhyun pulls up a chair beside Yixing and waves Lu Han away. "Go downstairs. He'll be out for another few hours at least." Lu Han opens his mouth to protest but Juhyun gives him a sharp look. "Go, Lu Han. I’ll look after him. You'll only get yourself worked up by staying here."

Lu Han looks mutinous but allows Sehun lead him out and down to the kitchen. He presses his face into his hands as Sehun boils water and opens every cupboard in the room looking for mugs and teabags.

Finally, when Sehun pushes a steaming mug toward Lu Han, does the older man uncoil and wrap his hands around it. He seems to be on the verge of speaking, but simply shakes his head, the saddest, quietest laugh Sehun has ever heard tumbling from his lips. It's silent for a few more minutes.

"Don't fall in love," Lu Han finally says, a small, pained smile twisting his lips, and suddenly Sehun can't say anything because the look on Lu Han's face is familiar. It's the same one he's felt aching in his chest constantly over the past weeks.

He averts his eyes, and they land on the stack of papers they'd been using in their calculations. "Did Minseok go back to the base?" Sehun asks idly. There's a small post it note sticking out of one of the textbooks that he's sure he didn't put there. He pulls it out of the stack.

Lu Han grasps onto the distraction like a drowning man. "Yeah. Luckily for us, it seems they were preparing to launch just when the meteor hit. No one bothered to take it down after, it's all still set up." There's a passage highlighted in pink on the page marked by the note.

"Yeah. Lucky," Sehun echoes absently. It's a definition for friction. _The force that opposes the relative motion of two surfaces_ , the text reads. _Air resistance can be thought of as a type of frictional force_. "Lu Han," Sehun says with a slowly dawning sense of realisation, "what about the friction?"

"What do you mean?" Lu Han asks, lowering his mug from his face, skin damp with steam.

"The air resistance. The spacecraft was originally intended for a take-off through air. All the dust in the atmosphere now must've increased the friction, right?"

"Shit," Lu Han says, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "You're right. You're absolutely right."

"Do we have any way of calculating the change?" Sehun asks.

"Someone published a paper on it, right after it happened. I downloaded a copy before the internet went down. Should be here somewhere, hang on." Lu Han shuffles through the stack of documents for a few moments before pulling out a few sheets of printed paper. He flicks through and stops suddenly, then inches his finger along the page, reading intently. 

He pulls out his calculator and punches in a few numbers. He frowns deeply, does it again, and shakes his head.

"What's wrong?" Sehun asks, trepidation taking root in his stomach.

"The tiles on the re-entry pod. They aren't designed to take the amount of heat the extra friction would generate."

Sehun swallow harshly. "The craft would burn up on re-entry," he whispers, fingers digging into the edge of the table.

Lu Han nods sadly. "I'm sorry, Sehun."

Sehun closes his eyes for a moment and exhales. This spacecraft was never meant for him. It's a heavier bargain now, but still not his to accept or decline. He doesn't open his eyes. "The friction isn't so much that it would burn up the craft on take-off?"

He hears the rhythmic chatter of Lu Han punching numbers into his calculator. Sehun hears him finish, then go through the pattern again to double check. "No, it won't," he says firmly, finally.

Sehun opens his eyes and nods, feeling like he might burst into tears. "Okay," he chokes out. 

Lu Han looks like he's about to say something, but then there are shuffling footsteps behind Sehun and Lu Han's whole face changes in the space of a heartbeat. Sehun swivels in his seat to see Yixing standing there, swaying and looking like death warmed over. Soojung has a tight grip on one of his elbows keeping him upright.

"Han." Yixing chokes out, and Lu Han is out of his seat instantly. "I'm so sorry," he mumbles, as Lu Han reaches him and wraps both arms around him tightly. Lu Han is muttering lowly, inaudibly against Yixing's hair as Yixing trembles, still swaying in his arms.

Soojung wraps a small but strong hand around Sehun's forearm and tugs him out of his seat, out of the kitchen.

"I should go," he says awkwardly, once they're out of earshot. Sehun glances down as she drops her hand. Her nails are stained translucent neon pink, like they've been coloured in with highlighter. She catches him staring and quickly pulls her sleeves down over her hands.

"Yeah, you should," she says bluntly. Her face is as blank as always, but she seems a little rattled. She stalks upstairs before Sehun has a chance to comprehend the implications of what he's just seen. Lollipop gives him a disdainful look as she unfolds herself from one of the couches and delicately trots up the stairs after Soojung.

Sehun swings his pack over his shoulder and is halfway out the door when someone calls his name. He turns to see Zitao, shirtless and hair a mess, stumbling down the corridor after him.

"Hey," he says, squinting like he can barely keep his eyes open. "Soojung said you were here." He hands a package to Sehun. "UV lamp," he elaborates, scratching his chest.

It takes him a few moments to remember. It feels like a lifetime ago he'd asked Zitao for it, before his life had started tearing apart at the seams. "Thanks. Uh, I don't have anything to trade right now..."

"Don't be stupid, just take it. You're family now." Zitao turns and stumbles away, presumably back to bed, while Sehun stands rooted to the spot, package in hand. 

_Family_. A world where the sun will never rise suddenly doesn't seem so dark anymore.

 

 

Jongin is standing over the pot on the windowsill when Sehun gets home. "Cool, isn't it?" Sehun says, dropping his pack from his shoulders. "I watered it with a solution of soil nutrients. I really think it'll grow this time." Jongin doesn't reply, his body as still as stone.

Brow furrowing, Sehun makes his way over to him. "Jongin, what's wrong?"

Jongin is staring straight down at the pot. Sehun follows his gaze and his heart sinks. The tiny knobs of green that'd been peeking out of the soil this morning are brittle and brown. 

"They realised there was nothing more," Jongin says, gaze hollow. "They pushed out of the soil and saw that there was nothing but sand. No sun, no moon, no air. Just sand." He turns his awful, dead eyes to Sehun. "Sehun, are you sure stars are real?"

 _Of course_ , Sehun starts to say. He knows they are, he knows exactly what they are made of, how they work, how they are born and how they die. But Jongin isn't like him. He believes with his eyes, his body, his heart, not with his mind. "I promise, Jongin. They're real."

Jongin's eyes are wide, imploring. "But you don't know that. You don't _know_ that." Sehun is silent because he does know, but not in a way that he can make Jongin understand.

Jongin takes one last look at the plant in the pot, shrivelled and brown. The look in his eyes is dead and dark, devoid of all hope, and Sehun's heart is in his throat. 

He walks into the kitchen with a desperate determination, flinging open the pantry. After rooting around for a few moments he finds what he's looking for-- a cardboard box that used to hold cans of food. He takes it into the garage, picking up the sewing kit on the way.

Using a needle he pokes holes in the thick cardboard, ten, a hundred, five hundred, until the box is riddled with tiny pinpricks. He puts it on the ground and braces his whole body against the heavy table in the centre of the room. He pushes and it moves a few inches, scraping loudly against the concrete as it goes. He does it again, and again, until he's breathing heavily and the table is pressed against the wall of the room.

"Sehun, what are you doing?" Jongin is standing apprehensively in the doorway, left leg hanging uselessly beneath him.

"Come in, close the door behind you." Sehun takes the lamp from his desk and twists the lampshade off, leaving only a naked bulb. Jongin looks apprehensive but steps in and closes the door behind him casting the entire room into pitch black.

"You're scaring me," Jongin says in a small voice by the door. Sehun puts the box upside down over the lamp and switches it on at the base.

The entire room explodes into pinpricks of light, dancing over the walls and ceiling. Jongin lets out a breath behind him, and Sehun turns. Jongin is leaning against the wall for balance, looking up at the tiny stars spread out over the roof. His face is lit up, constellations painted on his cheeks, across the bridge of his nose. 

Sehun watches Jongin as he watches the stars, and it's a few minutes before Sehun can bear to break this moment. "Jongin, I have something to ask you. I just... I want you to be happy."

Jongin's brow furrows but he doesn't look away from the stars. "How do I do that?" The question is so honest, so heartbreaking, that Sehun's resolve almost crumbles.

"I've been working on something with Lu Han and Minseok. We're going to send a craft into space."

Jongin blinks slowly, like he's coming out of a trance. He looks down at Sehun, something like hope igniting in his eyes. "Can I go? Please?"

"It's not that simple," Sehun says. "The friction has changed because of the dust in the atmosphere. The craft will go up, but it's going to burn up when it tries to re-enter the earth's atmosphere."

Jongin's expression flickers like a candle for just a moment, considering. He nods his head slowly. "Okay," he says, voice even. "That's okay. I want to go."

Sehun feels like he's going to throw up. "Jongin, do you understand what that means? You..." His voice breaks in his throat. "You'll die."

"I know," Jongin says. Something in his face changes, a layer strips away under the gaze of false stars, and Sehun feels like he's seeing Jongin, really seeing him, for the first time in months. "Sehun, I can't stay here. I know that now, and I think you do too. I can't breathe here, with all this dust and sand and... I can't see without the sun. I can't sleep at night without the moon. I can't... I can't do it anymore."

Sehun bites his lip and feels wetness sliding down his cheeks. "Why are you crying?" Jongin asks, limping to kneel beside him, face twisted in concern. _Why aren't you?_ Sehun wants to scream, because Jongin looks perfectly at peace for the first time in months.

"I'm going with you," Sehun grits out, voice thick like wet sand in his throat.

Jongin regards him for a moment. His face is serene, untroubled. "No, you aren't. I'm meant to leave this world, I know that now. But you, Oh Sehun, are going to save it."

The world blurs before Sehun's eyes. He presses his face into his forearm and feels wetness soak through his sleeve. Jongin's hand rests between his shoulder blades with a steady, comforting pressure. 

_Don't fall in love_. Lu Han's words echo in his ears, and Sehun chokes on another sob as Jongin's hand starts to rub slow circles into his spine.

 _Too late_ , he wants to tell Lu Han. _It's too late_.

 

 

It's still and dark and quiet as ever when he walks into his father's house. He sets his bag down beside him in the sandy entryway and winds his way through the house. 

His father is asleep on the couch in the lounge room. There's a half empty bottle of vodka on the floor beside him and all at once nine years of accumulated resentment, a childhood wasted learning how to survive, come surging up to the surface, burning and urgent.

"Dad, wake up." His father stirs and Sehun kicks the couch with the toe of his boot. "Wake up!" His father rolls to face the back of the couch and Sehun snaps. He grabs the bottle of vodka and pours the remaining half over his father's still form.

Sehun feels an instinctive pang of fear in his gut when his father roars and rolls over on the couch, grabbing blindly for him. It's nothing but an echo of a mostly forgotten childhood, he knows. He's grown up in ways he can't even begin to comprehend. 

"Sehun, what the fuck?" His father rubs the alcohol out of his eyes with the back of his hand. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Don't swear," Sehun tells him, anger burning hot and acidic beneath his skin.

"What did you just say to me?" His father looks up at him, eyes bloodshot and hungover but very lucid.

"I said, don't swear. She always hated it when you swore."

His father bristles like an angry bear woken from a nap. Sehun reminds himself again not to be afraid. "Don't you dare talk to me about her."

Sehun throws the bottle in his hand across the room. It shatters against the wall with an impossibly loud crash. "No, Dad! Don't _you_ dare! You sat in here and got yourself blind drunk while Jongin and I were in the backyard for five hours digging her grave. You were passed out in your own vomit while we were out there burying her. Don't you _dare_ talk about my mother."

His father looks down, not replying. Sehun walks into the kitchen and throws open the pantry. "Where is it?" He flings open all the kitchen cupboards, one by one. "Where do you keep it?"

His father is looking at him from the dark of the lounge room when he passes through. He looks so small, so broken that Sehun can't believe he was ever afraid of him. He storms down the hallway and strikes gold in the bathroom cabinet. A dozen bottles of spirits are lined up, all full. He pulls the first one out and unscrews the cap, pouring it down the sink.

He feels his father's presence in the hallway before he feels a hand clamp onto his arm. "Sehun, put the bottle down." 

He swats his father's hand away with surprising ease. "No. These aren't yours. It wasn't you that walked until your feet bled to get the food to trade for these. You didn't get trapped out in sandstorms or pass out from exhaustion every other week for these. Jongin did." He drops the empty bottle at his feet and starts on the next. "How dare you. He _raised_ me when you were too damn drunk do it yourself and this is the thanks you give him? How _fucking_ dare you."

Sehun feels tears stinging behind his eyes but forces them back. His father throws his weight into him and tries wrestling the bottle from his grip. It's both sickly satisfying and sad how easy it is for Sehun to push him aside. The last ten years have wasted him away into a mere shadow of the man Sehun remembers, and Sehun’s half a head taller now.

His father slumps against the wall in the corridor and watches as Sehun pours every last drop of alcohol down the sink. He turns to his father once the last bottle is lying empty at his feet.

"I'm leaving now, and I'm not coming back." He steps around his father and heads toward the door.

"You can't," his father says from behind him. "I’ve run out of food."

"You can figure something out," Sehun says over his shoulder. He's too drained to be angry now. He wants to go home and sleep for a very long time. "Just like I did when I was eleven and you stopped feeding me."

"Sehun, I'm your father. Don't do this." He stops and turns. His father is hunched against the wall, shirt damp with vodka and looking so, so small.

He shakes his head, slowly. "I needed a father nine years ago and you weren't there. There are people I care about that need me right now. I'm sorry, I'm done."

Sehun walks out of the house he grew up in, away from his father, and this time he does not look back.

 

 

Yixing answers the door, takes one look at Sehun's face and promptly pulls him into a hug. Sehun is too surprised to do anything other than stand rigid in place until Yixing lets go a few moments later. 

"Come in," he says softly, letting Sehun pass by him like nothing had happened.

Lu Han is sitting at the kitchen table when Sehun walks in and sits opposite him. He sags in his seat, exhausted. 

"What's wrong, kid?" Lu Han asks, tapping the back of Sehun's hand to get his attention.

 _Nothing_ , Sehun wants to say. _Everything_. "How do you know if you're doing the right thing?" he asks instead, and Lu Han lets out a breathy laugh and shakes his head.

"That's a hell of a question." He hums contemplatively for a moment. "Is this about Jongin?"

Sehun's resigned silence is enough of an answer, and Lu Han nods sympathetically. "It's always hard when it comes to love." 

Sehun closes his eyes. "But I'm not-- I don't even know if I like..."

Lu Han’s smile is patient. "Whether it's the same way I love Yixing or not, you do love him. And he loves you too."

Sehun goes silent at that. Lu Han leans back in his chair. "Have you ever wondered why you never see Juhyun around unless we go and get her?" Sehun hasn't, but now Lu Han mentions it he realises that it's true. "She was a nurse before. She cares for Joonmyun full time, twenty four hours a day. She's in love with him," Lu Han adds, almost as an afterthought.

"And he doesn't feel the same?" Sehun speculates.

"Oh believe me, he does. He's been in love with her for years." Lu Han's expression flickers. "But he's dying. He knows that, and so does she. No one gets better once they get this much sand in their lungs. He thinks he's protecting her by denying his feelings and keeping her at arm’s length. But he's just making them both miserable."

"That's awful," Sehun murmurs. Lu Han nods sadly.

"When you love someone, you want nothing more than their safety and their happiness. They're not always the same thing, though." Lu Han runs a hand through his dark hair, the harsh light making his skin look paper-thin. "Yixing is the most selfless person I've ever met, and I love him for it. But sometimes I wish..." Lu Han bites his lip, takes a deep breath before continuing. "He can't sit by and do nothing while he knows others are suffering. It tears him apart. There's only one thing I hate more than seeing Yixing hurt, and that's seeing him sad."

Lu Han's words resonate with something deep inside him, and Sehun squeezes his eyes shut. "Love is wanting to give someone everything you have to offer and realising that's impossible. It's recognising that you need to make choices. Do you give them what they want or what they need? Would you choose their safety or their happiness? I've made my decision. So has Joonmyun."

"I don't know what to do," Sehun admits, voice quiet in the dull light.

"I can't decide for you. I'm sorry, I wish I could." Lu Han's face is soft with empathy. "But the decision is yours and only yours. You're the one who has to live with it."

Sehun folds his arms on the table and presses his face against them. Live with Jongin like he is now, miserable, lightless, for the rest of his life, or live without him at all.

Sehun feels tears burning behind his eyes, shoulders shaking in silent sobs, as Lu Han sighs and reaches over to rub comfortingly at the back of his neck. He's not crying because he's afraid of losing Jongin. He's crying because he's realising that maybe he already has.

 

 

It's not as if Sehun meant to lie to Lu Han. He was born into a dying race, he has to fight for every meal, every day, every breath-- he hasn't exactly had time for extensive self-discovery. But he didn't exactly tell the whole truth either.

It's just that sometimes when night has fallen and Jongin isn't home yet, he has to clench his fists hard enough that his nails carve red crescents into his palm to stop himself running out into the storm screaming his name. It's how, on one night out of every hundred, Sehun wakes with his mother’s voice in his ears, a sob in his throat and Jongin already sliding under the covers beside him.

And he’s never really thought about it before, never asked himself where his preferences lie, but there are other things, too. Like when Sehun works late into the night and Jongin thinks the bedroom walls are thicker than they really are and Sehun has to recite his seventeen times tables backward to stop the thundering of his heart and the warm coil of interest in the base of his abdomen.

He doesn't even know what love is, really. He's twenty and very confused, but he knows he's never wanted to see anyone's smile as much as he wants to see Jongin's. He knows he wants Jongin to smile, even if he's not there to see it. He knows that he would rather lose Jongin than watch him lose himself. 

And besides, he's starting to realise that maybe Jongin was never his to keep in the first place.

 

 

Jongin is not in the lounge room when Sehun arrives home. He isn't in the kitchen either, nor at the dining table or in the bedroom, although both his and Sehun's sheets are stripped from their mattresses. 

Sehun is on the verge of panicking when he notices the light glowing under the door from inside the garage. He slowly cracks open the door.

The box is over the top of the lamp again, tiny pinpricks of light throwing everything into hazy relief; the walls, the ceiling, and Jongin, curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows.

Sehun steps into the room and pulls the door shut gently behind him. Jongin doesn't stir, eyes shut and face serene. Sehun lowers himself to the ground beside him, slipping under the blankets. The tiny stars paint patterns on Jongin's face, down the curve of his neck, across his exposed forearm. 

Sehun read once that people from before used to think they could read their future in the stars. He wonders what the twin stars over Jongin's left eyelid mean, whether the three dots tracing the slope of his nose spell something good, why the lopsided isosceles painted on his lips makes Sehun’s stomach flutter and his heart sink.

Jongin stirs, eyes flickering under their lids, nose crinkling. The spell is broken and the stars realign, but there's a new story to be told now, a whole new sky mapped out over Jongin's face. Sehun will never have time to read it all but he tries anyway.

Several new skies later, Jongin rolls over restlessly in his sleep, bringing him face to face with Sehun. They're only inches, one or two stars, apart. Sehun freezes, breath catching in his throat and Jongin must sense it because his eyes open slowly, as slow as the burn of the sun or the shift of the stars.

"Sehun." He breathes out, the word whispered like a prayer, like a promise that Sehun can feel echo against his skin. Jongin's eyes flutter shut and he presses forward, the space between them receding as inevitably as the waning moon, as the pull of the tide.

Jongin touches his lips to Sehun's and he's lost. Lost at sea aboard a sinking ship, lost in a field of immortal stars that burn brighter than anything he's ever known, lost amongst the sparks igniting behind his eyelids and in the feeling sweeping through his whole body, the certainty that this is all he's ever wanted and all he'll ever need.

Jongin pulls away and Sehun's mouth fills with words he wants to say but can't. He finds Jongin's hand amongst the blankets and holds it tight in his own and hopes Jongin understands. Jongin squeezes back painfully hard and Sehun thinks he gets it.

There's a map in Sehun's bag with a house right at the edge of the city marked on it. This is where Lu Han and Minseok will wait for them tomorrow morning with a truck that will take them outside the city to the aerospace base. This is where Jongin will climb into a spacecraft bound for the stars and will never come back.

But Sehun doesn't think about any of this, not right now. Right now, all he knows is the sleepy smile on Jongin's face, the intermittent, shy presses of their lips and the fallen stars that dance around them as the night blurs into an eternity.

 

 

Sehun is no longer naive enough to hope that anything will last forever. When morning crawls its way into the room, he is ready.

"Come on," he says, nudging Jongin out of his semi-sleep state. "It's time to go." Jongin blinks up at him owlishly for a few moments before he lets Sehun help him up. The ground is freezing beneath his bare feet but Jongin is warm tucked against his side.

There's a bright light by the windowsill that Sehun hadn't noticed the night before. He walks closer and then stops in his tracks.

The UV lamp Zitao had given him is perched over the pot, beaming down a steady shroud of light. And in the pot a single plant is pushing out of the soil, defiant green against the oppressive brown. The plant is new, still young, yet impossibly there are three tiny blue flowers at the end of one of the stems. 

"I think I set it up right? I told you it'd grow," Jongin murmurs at his side and Sehun's heart is so full he thinks it might burst. "What are they called?"

"Forget-me-nots," Sehun says, eyes riveted on the bursts of cerulean. "Mom used to grow them because they were the colour of the summer sky." Jongin breathes out a tiny _wow_ and looks back at the flowers with newfound intensity. "They're symbols of true love, and of memories."

"Fitting," Jongin mutters, a hint of a sad smile in his words. Sehun understands. Very soon that's all they will have left of each other.

"Jongin," Sehun begins, and he doesn't know how to continue because there is too much to say and far too little time.

"I know," Jongin says, hand resting on Sehun's chest, right over his heart. "I know, me too."

"I wish..." There are so many things he wants to say. I wish you could still walk. I wish I could've been enough to make you happy all on my own. I wish some nights would last forever. I wish I could watch the stars with you.

"I know," Jongin says again. "In another life, maybe." Sehun closes his eyes. Nods. His heart doesn't falter anymore, just beats rhythmic and strong against Jongin's palm. Jongin beams up at him.

The dawn is cold but clear and bright. The meeting point is a ten minute walk from where they are, twenty with Jongin on crutches. They do not hurry. Jongin studies the world around him with the innocent glee of a toddler, drinking in the worn buildings and brown sky with wide eyes. Sehun watches him, an unbidden smile curving his lips.

Lu Han is leaning against the hood of a rusted silver SUV when they approach. Minseok is already in the driver's seat, an uncharacteristically devious grin on his face. Sehun finds out why a moment later when the car starts with a mighty roar and Lu Han jumps three feet in the air.

"Damnit, Minseok!" Lu Han yells as Minseok cracks up behind the windshield. Lu Han mutters obscenities under his breath as he turns to face them. "Hop aboard, kids," he says, jerking his thumb toward the car.

Minseok is a careful driver even though the road is non-existent, covered by decades of sand. Sehun lets Jongin stretch his bad leg out over his lap and watches as he winds the window down all the way and sticks his head out. His laugh is lost in the wind but Sehun can see it in the shake of his shoulders and the way he smiles so widely his eyes disappear. He turns back to check that Sehun is watching, his dark hair whipping around his face and eyes so, so alive. Sehun smiles back, heart clenching in his chest.

The station appears as a bare silhouette on the horizon that eventually resolves into a complex of buildings surrounded by flat plains of sand. Lu Han hops out and holds open a big steel gate in the fence that surrounds the compound while Minseok drives through.

Minseok cuts the engine as they pull up to the central building, a plain white affair with huge windows overlooking the far side of the compound. He unlocks the building with a key from his pocket and leads them in, silently taking Jongin's other side when they have to climb a flight of stairs. The room at the top is eerie and dark, filled with row upon row of computers, all facing a huge plate glass window at one end of the room.

Minseok boots up a computer connected to the emergency generator at the front of the room as Lu Han explains the launch sequence to a rapt Jongin. The most difficult part of launches, as Lu Han explains, is the navigation. Often missions require pinpoint accuracy so that the craft can meet up with a satellite or a space station, or so it can land at a particular location.

"Since you won't need to worry about that, it's actually a very simple operation to drive with an inexperienced astronaut and only one computer on the ground. Minseok can initiate the launch sequence from here, and once you're suited up we should be good to go." Lu Han is so nonchalant, so unwaveringly cheerful about the whole thing that Sehun knows he's affected.

It takes an hour to get Jongin suited up in a huge, white monstrosity. He catches sight of his reflection in a window when it's done and laughs himself silly. Sehun helps him wrestle the huge helmet onto his head and clips it to his suit while Jongin peers at him out of the raised visor. Sehun doesn't look up even though he can feel Jongin's breath on his cheeks, instead focusing on getting everything connected correctly. 

"Thanks," Jongin says quietly when he's done, the most bittersweet expression colouring his features. Sehun knows he's not thanking him just for the helmet. He clears his throat where it clogs with emotion.

"You're welcome," Sehun says, and Jongin squeezes his shoulder with a gloved hand once, briefly.

Lu Han drives them out to the launch site, a few hundred meters from the building. The wind has picked up since they arrived. It's certainly not storming, but there's just a touch of sand carried on the air.

Jongin lets out a breath as they approach the craft. It rests on a moveable launch pad mounted along tracks that stretch back toward the building. Thankfully it'd been moved back into the building after it became apparent that the first planned launch would not proceed. The decades of sand and wind would've rendered it useless otherwise.

As it is, the _Shenzhou 9_ stands tall and proud, an enormous white construction shaped just like the rockets from the picture books Sehun read as a child. There's a huge launch tower beside it, blue scaffolding that supports the rocket itself.

"Most of what you can see is the Long March 2F carrier, not the actual craft itself. It'll detach about ten minutes after take-off." Lu Han says, eyes fixed out the windshield as he swings them around beside the rocket.

It's difficult to get Jongin inside, the interior is cramped and the only way in is a tiny porthole that's barely the width of Sehun's shoulders. Lu Han ends up inside catching Jongin's upper half as Sehun helps him twist his body in from outside. It takes Lu Han a few minutes to ensure Jongin is strapped in properly, to explain the take-off procedure.

"By my calculations, you should have just less than three hours in orbit above the earth's atmosphere." There's a conspicuous lapse in Lu Han's speech, a purposeful skirting around an ending that hangs thick in the air. Lu Han's expression melts into something soft, gentle. "You're a brave kid, Jongin. The bravest I've ever met. Good luck." He clasps Jongin’s shoulder for a brief moment before crawling over to the porthole. 

Sehun ducks his head outside so Lu Han can climb through. He gives Sehun a strange look, a mixture of pity and admiration. "Go say goodbye. You remember how to shut the door?" Sehun nods, swallowing hard. "Good. I'll wait in the car." It occurs to Sehun for the first time that Lu Han is conceivably old enough to be his father.

With steady hands but a sinking in his chest, Sehun clambers through the porthole. The interior of the craft is cylindrical and unbelievably cramped. The centre is taken up by machinery, leaving three seats around the edge. Jongin is in the one furthest left, a tiny round window at his right shoulder.

Sehun sits down in the centre seat, watching as Jongin peers out. Endless plains of sand stretch out beyond the glass.

"It's hard to believe," Jongin murmurs, "that soon there will be stars and the sun and the sky out there. All I've ever known is sand."

"It's not too late to change your mind," Sehun offers, the forced lightness in his tone betrayed by the way his voice trembles.

Jongin turns away from the window to face him then, and he doesn't say anything but the answer is written on his face.

Sehun nods. "I know. I just had to ask." And he doesn't know what to say after that. There are things he wants to say. _Thank you. I'm sorry. Goodbye_. But there are no words that can contain the gravity of the situation. No words are enough to mark the end of fifteen years of friendship. None are enough to thank Jongin for being his best, his only, friend. For raising him when he had no one else and for keeping him alive when alone he surely would've starved within weeks. For being the brightest light in this dark world, without which Sehun would've been blind and lost and so, so afraid.

"Don't forget me, yeah?" Jongin asks, a wistful smile curving his lips.

Sehun swallows the tears in his throat. "Never." 

The smile drops slowly until Jongin is simply staring at him. "Promise?" he says, in the tiniest voice.

Sehun feels a sob break out of his throat. "I promise."

Jongin reaches out his arms, body bound in place by the harness, and Sehun falls into his arms. "I promise." Sehun says again into Jongin's shoulder, as Jongin's arms wrap tightly around his back. "Always." A strange permutation of a laugh and a sob bubbles up in his throat, and Jongin only holds him tighter, stronger.

Finally, finally Sehun pulls away. Jongin scrunches his face up like he does when he's trying not to cry even though there's already wetness streaking his cheeks.

"Bye. Good luck," Sehun whispers. He squeezes Jongin's hand tightly in his own.

"Bye," Jongin echoes, voice barely audible, his hand clenching Sehun's equally tight. They share a small, final smile before Sehun turns and crawls out of the craft. He climbs out of the porthole and he can't see Jongin from here, but he can hear the sounds of him shifting in his seat. He takes a deep breath and swings the trapdoor shut, locking it the way Lu Han had shown him.

Every step away hurts like there are nails in the soles of his shoes, every beat of his heart a painful seize in his chest. Lu Han is waiting in the driver's seat of the car, window wound down and elbow resting on the doorframe.

"I think I'm gonna walk back. I want to watch from outside," Sehun says, feet kicking at the ground.

"Okay," Lu Han says, twisting the keys in the ignition. "Make sure you're not too close for the launch, yeah? At least halfway back to the building." Sehun nods and Lu Han drives off, a cloud of dust billowing behind him.

The wind is lazy but insistent, pulling at his ankles and ruffling his clothes. It feels like so long ago now that he'd walked halfway across the city with Jongin unconscious on his back. He'd thought it was the hardest thing he'd ever done, would ever have to do. If only he'd realised then that he would have to walk away from him. The weight of that across his shoulders is far heavier than Jongin could ever be.

The horizon blurs into the skyline and the wind presses cold and wet against his cheeks. Sehun closes his eyes, forces himself to keep walking. 

When he opens his eyes again he spins around to see that he's far, far away from the launch site. The panic that seizes him is instinctive but very real, and he has to clench his hands into fists to stop from running back the way he came, all the way back to Jongin.

Minseok and Lu Han must be watching him from the control building, because it's only a few moments after he stops that the struts holding up the craft begin to retract back into the launch tower.

"Fuck," Sehun chokes out, because this is really happening. "Oh god, Jongin."

Nothing happens for long enough that Sehun's hopes stir, golden and tentative in his chest. But then there's a deafening roar and a flame ignites at the base of the rocket. Slowly but steadily, it begins to rise into the air.

"No," Sehun whispers. An enormous cloud of sand and dust, stirred up by the flame, rolls toward him. He throws his arms over his face as it reaches him, the world going pitch black. The shockwave hits him next, warm and overbearing, and throws him to his knees in the sand. 

By the time the dust clears enough for him to open his eyes, the craft is high, high above him. The blazing red of the flame is the brightest thing Sehun's ever seen. Its light illuminates everything around him, settles golden on the planes of his face, and he wonders if this is what sunlight might feel like on his face.

Sehun watches as the craft slowly grows farther away, disappearing into the haze of dust, taking Jongin along with it. It's a mere shadow now, a silhouette in the dust. He can feel himself being torn in two, torn between gravity, the earth beneath his feet, and the sky, his best friend, his heart. 

He can't see anything but the red flame now, a tiny beacon in the darkness, the tiniest flickering goodbye. And then, once he can no longer hear the roar of the engines and the last of the red firelight disappears from this earth, Sehun bows his head and cries. He doesn't remember watching the sky go dark the first time, has never looked up at the sun with the knowledge he'd never see it again heavy in his heart. But he thinks he now knows exactly how it feels.

He doesn't know how long he stays that way before he sees something flickering out of the corner of his eye. He looks up. His vision is blurred with tears but he can see something small and orange flitting jerkily around his head. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. The creature is small enough to fit in his palm and has delicately curved wings stained with patterns of orange and black. As he watches, it flits down to land on the back of his still raised hand, wings twitching but seemingly content.

"It's a monarch butterfly," says a voice from behind him, and Sehun whips around. Lu Han is standing behind him, eyes fixed on the creature on Sehun's hand and a peculiar look on his face. "I assumed they'd died out years ago."

Sehun turns back to the creature on his hand. It twitches its wings and shuffles a bit, tickling the skin of his hand. Just as quickly as it had arrived, it flits off of Sehun's hand and darts away. Sehun tracks its jerky flight until he can no longer see it against the backdrop of sand.

Lu Han has a wry smile on his face. "Just when you think you know what to expect, this world surprises you again." Sehun remembers the old world lullaby his mother used to sing him. _Only the wind knows the butterfly's flight_. 

"Come on, Sehun. It's time to go," Lu Han says gently. Sehun heaves a shaky breath out through his mouth, wipes the wetness from his cheeks and gets to his feet.

 

 

Sehun is and always will be, down to his very core, a scientist. He cannot see a problem without looking for a solution, cannot see a beginning without mapping out the ending. And this particular puzzle has been on his mind for the past nineteen years.

"Won't you just move in with us already?" Zitao whines, draping himself over Sehun's kitchen table.

"No," Sehun says, kicking at Zitao's shins to get him off the papers Sehun has spread out over the surface of the table. "I have to finish this project."

It's not entirely a lie. He is working on a project and he does have to finish it. And the idea of moving in with Zitao and the others isn't an awful one, even with Kyungsoo who, as it turns out, really is quite nice, and Jongdae who has mellowed out in the past months into a soft spoken young man, except for when he's laughing or belting out the harmony to one of Lu Han's Chinese ballads. But really Sehun's just trying to avoid the fact that even though it's been six months, there are memories in this house which he isn't ready to leave behind yet.

"I will though, eventually," he amends in light of Zitao's crestfallen expression. "As long as I don't have to rooms with your disgusting ass."

Zitao gasps. "Hey, I'm a great roommate! Just ask Soojung."

"He gets up to pee at least five times a night," Soojung supplies instantly from the other end of the table, the ends of her hair tickling the papers she's hunched over.

"See?" Sehun says, and Zitao groans.

"You two becoming friends is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me."

"We aren't friends," Soojung and Sehun say in unison, neither of them looking up from their work. Zitao looks equal parts amused and pained.

It's true, though. Soojung isn't any nicer to him than she was before. It just so happens that she has read and reread every book in Lu Han's collection and admitted to tipping him off about the air resistance six months ago. She spends a lot of time at his house researching and experimenting, but she's smart and quiet so it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.

But Zitao's question inevitably makes him think of his father with a strange new pang of sympathy in his throat. Sehun had never understood why he had refused to leave their house in the safe zone and come to live here, but he thinks he's starting to get it.

Maybe it's this realisation, or maybe he's just not as heartless as he tries to be, or it could be that he's lost too many people to push anyone away willingly anymore-- whatever it is, it brings him to the front gate of his childhood home on a cold mid-morning.

The wind is gentle but bitter against his skin, and he shivers inside his coat, pushing the gate aside and walking up the front path. He's not sure quite how to feel. He's not angry, not anymore. He's disappointed and tired and nervous. Above all, he's almost twenty-one and he misses his father.

And he's not delusional. He knows what he might find, and knows that he'll probably blame himself for a long time if the worst has happened. But he thinks he'll regret it more never sees his father again, no matter how hard he's tried to convince himself otherwise.

The front door is still unlocked when he tries it, but the entryway is swept and the curtains at the end of the hall are open. Sehun slips his pack off his shoulder silently. There are voices he doesn't recognise coming from inside the house and light glowing softly from the doorway ahead of him. He pads quietly up the hall and peers around the corner.

Half a dozen men and women he doesn't know are perched on the couches, a big piece of paper spread out on the coffee table in the centre of the room. They notice him one by one, conversation petering out as they peer up at him curiously. His father is one of the last to look up, cross legged on the floor by the coffee table.

Sehun almost doesn't recognise him. He's shaved recently and his shirt is clean. He's still thin but he's no longer skin and bones. His face takes on the strangest expression when he sees Sehun enter the room.

"Who’s this?" a woman perched on the arm of the sofa asks, looking Sehun up and down with curiosity but not hostility.

"Uh, everyone this is my... my son, Sehun." His father looks at him nervously like he's expecting Sehun to object to the term. He says nothing.

"I didn't know you had a son," says someone from the three-seater at the back of the room.

His father doesn't turn as he answers, but keeps looking at Sehun like he's a ghost, like he could vanish at any moment. "Nor did I," his father says finally. The room falls silent, all eyes on Sehun.

"I just. I was just dropping by to see how things were," Sehun says, shifting from foot to foot. "Looks like they're good so, uh, I'm gonna go."

"Wait, Sehun," his father says, moving to get to his feet. Sehun is no longer furious at his father, but he's still hurt, still bears the scars from ten years of neglect. He doesn't want his father to die, but he certainly doesn't want to talk to him either.

It must show on his face, because his father sits back down slowly, visibly biting back what he'd been about to say. His eyes fall to the papers spread out on the table in front of him, and he looks back up slowly. "How much do you know about water purification?"

Sehun knows quite a lot, but instead he says, after a pause, "Why?"

"The safe zone is running out of fresh water. We need a way to purify large quantities of river water regularly." His father pauses, visibly struggling with his words. "I thought of asking you first but I wasn't sure where to find you. You've always been good at these things. Luckily you... you inherited your mother's mind."

It's not quite an apology, but it is a start. "I'll... I'll think about it," Sehun says hesitantly. He doesn't just mean the water purification, and by the way his father nods gravely, Sehun thinks he understands. The conversation slowly picks up as Sehun turns and makes his way out of the room. He can feel his father's eyes on his back all the way out.

 

 

Sehun throws himself into his work for the next month, emerging from the garage only to eat and sleep. Soojung takes up a permanent residence at the dining table in the other room, darting into the garage occasionally to grab supplies from Sehun's shelf. Lollipop inevitably follows her to Sehun's house, a perpetual ball of grumpy white fur on the dining chair closest to Soojung. Sehun's relationship with the cat progresses from outright hostility to angry glares across the room once she realises Sehun will feed her if she doesn't claw him for an entire day.

Sehun is so preoccupied that it ends up being Soojung who works out the blueprints for a simple but effective water treatment system. He only finds out when she returns one afternoon after giving her plans to his father.

"He asked how you are," she says, fingers combing through the knots in her hair disinterestedly.

Sehun nods idly, then after a calculated pause, asks, "What did you say?"

"That you're unbearable. An asshole," she says offhandedly, and Sehun laughs. Soojung looks up at him, a rare wry smile curving her lips. "You two have the same laugh."

He feels an unexpected surge of affection for her. Out of everyone he's ever met, even Lu Han and even... even Jongin, Soojung is the person most like himself. He decides if anyone is able to help him with this project of his, it's her.

"I've been thinking. Maybe I was wrong all this time." Soojung raises an eyebrow, which Sehun knows isn't judgemental, rather simply means _I'm listening_. "Maybe I wasn't ever meant to save him. Maybe he couldn't be saved. But I think... I think maybe I can save the rest of us."

"What do you mean?" Soojung says carefully, hands dropping from her hair to rest in her lap.

Sehun takes a deep breath. "Electrostatic precipitation."

Soojung's eyebrows hit her hairline. "Removing particulates from the air. Surely you don't mean to say... Sehun, the scale would be enormous. Not to mention the risks."

"I think we could do it, though." There's a question in there he's not asking.

Soojung huffs but there's a new spark in her eyes. "You're ridiculous. Get me a pen and paper."

 

 

As is often the case, Soojung is right.

Electrostatic precipitation works on the principle of electrostatic attraction. A potential difference is induced across two electrodes, dust particles are ionised by one and attracted to the oppositely charged plate, taking them out of the air.

It's simple enough, but on such an enormous scale and so high above the ground, it becomes a logistical nightmare. It takes them a little under a year of theorising, testing, tweaking and trying again to come up with a variation of electrostatic precipitation that might just work. Sehun often keeps working even after Soojung has fallen asleep, and if the wind howls through the night he doesn't notice it.

It takes another six months, with a lot of help from Lu Han and Minseok, for all the necessary preparations to be made.

And then, in an odd parallel that still makes his chest ache if he thinks about it too hard, he's in the back of the old white SUV early one morning, speeding outside the city limits. Except Soojung is in the backseat with him, and this time he's two years older and a whole lot wiser. He's been speaking with his dad more and more often. Everything is different.

That's the thing Sehun's come to learn. His life the way it used to be wasn't easy, but it was good, and he was happy. But nothing lasts forever, he knows that now, and it had been torn to pieces, unravelled before his helpless eyes.

He still misses Jongin. He's missed him every day since he's been gone, and knows he will continue to every day for the rest of his life. But that doesn't mean he has to curl up and cry amongst the yarn that made up the existence Jongin once slotted into. He can still mourn him, can still love him, and weave the strands into something new. He owes that much to himself. To Jongin too, and to everyone there's a space for in this new existence, to Soojung and Zitao and Lu Han and even his father.

It's not the same as it was. It never will be, and there's something unavoidably bittersweet in that. But it's real, and it's his own, and sometimes he can still find hints of Jongin woven into the gaps. And that's more than enough for him.

It takes them the whole day to set up atop the ridge of hills that borders the city to the east. Soojung starts at the northernmost end of the hills, Lu Han at the south, and Sehun between them at the centre. Minseok drives back and forth, ferrying each new component to them as they require them.

When Soojung and Lu Han finally meet Sehun in the middle, the chill of nightfall is settling in the air and the wind is picking up around them. Lu Han has a huge grin on his face and Soojung's hair is sticking to her face with sweat, but her dark eyes are bright with excitement.

Minseok drives up beside them, parking the vehicle at their backs. It provides some shelter from the wind, and Sehun settles on the ground, leaning his back against a tyre. Soojung plops down next to him a few minutes later and Lu Han and Minseok lean against the car on his other side, talking quietly.

"Do you really think it'll work?" Soojung asks him. She puts on a tough front, but Sehun has known her for a long time now. She's still tough, there's no doubt about that, but she's younger than him and has been through a lot worse. She's just as lost as the rest of them. Just as in need of reassurance.

Sehun grabs her small hand in his own. "If it doesn't, we'll just try again," he says, and her face shows no reaction but her hand briefly squeezes his own tentatively as they gaze out over the darkening plains together.

"Sehun, Soojung. Look!" Lu Han's excited exclamation cuts into their thoughts. He’s pointing to their right, to one of the contraptions closest to them. The wind has picked up enough that the enormous kite is stirring. With an enormous _whoosh_ the sail fills with air and rises a few metres into the air.

The wind rises further, and a kite a few hundred metres down picks up too, immediately surging ten metres up into the sky. Soon all of the almost one hundred kites along the line of the hills have inflated in the wind, soaring up into the sky. They rise as the wind crescendos, and soon are out of sight in the billowing dust, only the thick cables anchoring them to the ground still visible.

"You want to do the honours, Sehun?" Lu Han asks, pointing to a portable generator on the ground beside them.

With a surge of nervousness, Sehun silently makes his way over. He checks the voltage and then, with damp palms, flicks the switch on. Nothing happens at first, but that's to be expected. The electrostatic precipitators built into the kites are now switched on, sweeping the dust particles from the air as the wind drags them through.

Sehun sits back down as they all wait in anxious silence, heads tipped skyward. Soojung suddenly gasps and grabs his forearm, her long nails biting into his skin. Sehun is about to complain when he sees it too.

Above them and slightly to the left, a tiny patch of light is visible through the smog. Sehun sees two tiny pinpricks of pure white against the deepest black before the wind shifts and it's covered again.

Sehun looks to his side to see Soojung grinning at him widely, and he hears Lu Han laughing breathily, murmuring something to Minseok in an amazed voice. They spend the next half hour pointing out patches of clear sky to each other as they appear above them, each one brighter and more long-lived than the last.

It happens so gradually that it's not until he notices he can make out each one of Soojung's individual eyelashes that he realises. "Hey guys, has it always been this... bright?"

Soojung stares at him questioningly but she suddenly freezes, her eyes widening. She climbs to her feet and stares out over the plains of endless sand. She gasps, and then she's running down the hill, sand kicking up behind her.

"Soojung, what-- wait!" Sehun stumbles after her, nearly losing his balance on the soft sand. He thinks he hears Lu Han laugh, and he vows to kick his ass at a later date when he's not busy trying to catch up to Soojung.

She doesn't stop running once she reaches flat ground, and Sehun swears breathlessly into the wind as he speeds up. Finally, she slows to a stop, and Sehun runs up beside her a few moments later, air burning in his throat as he heaves it in. He doubles over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"Soojung, what... what the... hell," he says, between heaving breaths. She's silent. He looks up to see her with her head tipped back, barely even winded.

"Look up," she urges him. Sehun clutches the stitch in his side but does as she says. He's suddenly breathless in an entirely different way.

The haze above them is thin and translucent, most of the dust filtered out upwind. Through it, Sehun can see the faint outline of every star in the sky. "Wow," he breathes, as Soojung spreads her arms and spins around beside him, her eyes locked on the stars and a soft laugh bubbling out of her, warming the night. She stumbles, loses her balances and collides with Sehun. They both go sprawling in the dirt.

"We did it," she says, making no move to get up, only rolling off of Sehun. Her eyes are fierce and alight. She props herself on her arms and tips her head all the way back. "Sehun, we actually did it."

"We did," he says quietly, lying back in the dirt, arms propped behind his head. Each new gust of wind clears the air even more, and soon the starlight is so bright it hurts his eyes, but he refuses to close them.

"Look," Soojung says, pointing skyward. Newly revealed by a passing cloud of dust is the moon, crescent and tentative but so, heartbreakingly real.

"I promised him, you know," Sehun says quietly, and Soojung falls into a receptive stillness. "I promised him it was all real, the sky and the stars and the moon. And I knew they were, of course I did, but I was still afraid. That he'd regret it or change his mind, and it would be far too late." Sehun drinks in the endless fields of stars above him, each one a single diamond set in obsidian, glowing with its own impossible light. "But now that I've seen it I know for sure. He would’ve been so, so happy." Sehun feels tears burning hot behind his eyes, but he's not sad. Not by a long shot.

"You loved him a lot." It's not a question, but Sehun answers anyway.

"Yeah. I still do." He still smiles every time he passes the blue bursts of the forget-me-nots on the windowsill, has picked up the habit of tapping the doorframe into the entryway every time he passes, for luck. But the space in his chest reserved for Jongin isn't caving in, not anymore. It's full of memories and true love and even though there's a tinge of bittersweet nostalgia there, it's composed of helium, not lead, and pulls him up rather than crushing him beneath its weight.

Sehun falls asleep with real starlight dancing on his skin and a smile on his face.

 

 

When Sehun next opens his eyes it’s to Soojung leaning over him, shaking him awake. "Fucking finally," she says, as he groans and bats her away. "Get up, quick. You won't want to miss this."

She drags him to his feet by the hand and tows him up the hill as he splutters groggily and tries to keep his balance. They reach the top of the hill and Sehun only then notices that not only Lu Han and Minseok are there, but Zitao and Yixing and even Kyungsoo, Jongdae at his side.

Zitao immediately dives for him and clings, chattering in his ear. "Sehun, the stars! Did you see them? They were so magical, weren't they? I can't believe--"

"Shut it, Zitao," Kyungsoo monotones from behind them. "And get out of the way. It's starting."

"What's starting?" Sehun asks, as Soojung drags him in line with the others and spins him to face back the way he came.

"Oh," he says quietly, because splayed out before them is the city, and behind it the sky is blazing in impossible hues of scarlet and orange and vermillion. Everything goes very still, and Sehun holds his breath as the light in the sky slowly crescendos and the sun climbs into view, heavy and huge and so, so impossibly bright.

Zitao is already crying softly against Sehun's shoulder, and Yixing has his back pressed against Lu Han's chest, an irrepressible grin on his face. Lu Han tears his eyes from the horizon to look at him and presses a kiss to his cheek, the fondest look in his sunlit eyes. Soojung is at Sehun's other side, her eyes glazed over in awe. For the first time, Sehun sees that her hair glows with a touch of red in the sunlight. 

Sehun turns back to the sun as it rises over a broken city. This world still isn't perfect, not even close, and he knows there is a lot of work to be done. But, as he feels his skin warm under the watchful gaze of the morning sun for the first time in his life, he quiets his mind and loses himself in this tiny, momentary slice of perfection.

**Author's Note:**

> it took every shred of self control i possess to not have jongin tell sehun that he 'just needs some space'
> 
> the title comes from the concept of [escape speed](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vesc.html), or escape velocity, the speed at which an object’s kinetic energy is equal to its potential energy, allowing it to escape the earth’s gravitational field... i have a lot of feelings about science...
> 
> also, [here](https://youtu.be/o5JVlDzp1MM?t=11m25s) is a vid of an actual shenzhou 9 launch for anyone that's interested, and [this](http://sixpenceee.com/post/113529316246/this-is-the-view-from-the-soyuz-capsule-the), because i'm a sadist but also because it's pretty, is a gif of what it looks like to re-enter the earth's atmosphere from inside a spacecraft.
> 
> thanks to Ils for the advice on the ending, even though she'll never see this.
> 
> a lot of the themes and characters in this fic are really close to my heart and it means a lot to me, so thank you very much for reading!


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